


I scream, You scream

by stainlesssteelsexappeal (Chinmychangas)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Amputation, Blood Loss, Canon Divergence, Did someone say emotional constipation, F/M, Female pronouns, Minor Character Death, Other, Pilot!Reader, Prosthetic legs, Slow Burn, Vomiting, bullet wounds, mentions of needles, tags are updated as they go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2020-11-02 11:35:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20732534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chinmychangas/pseuds/stainlesssteelsexappeal
Summary: A story about a pilot!reader who becomes unwillingly embroiled in a conspiracy with MECH, the United States Government, and a few choice Cybertronians.But reader becomes friends with Starscream so shenanigans ensue.Chapter 5 has been beta’d by NemysissChapter 6 onwards has been beta'd by 4LOM





	1. Danger Zone

**Author's Note:**

> I call the reader Lieutenant even though she's not technically part of the US Air Force.
> 
> If anyone wants to be a beta or wants to talk about Starscream pls hmu lol

You sat in the corner of the bar with a lukewarm Corona in your hand.

The dark ambience lightened only by a couple of strobing Arcade games, pinball machines, and fairy lights strung around the bar, gave a tired look that seemed like it hadn’t been updated since the early 90s. The raucous and drunk shouts by a room full of 20 smth 6ft men squeezed into a tiny room made everything seem louder, and you could just barely hear the notes of something catchy playing in the bassline. 

You took a sip from your beer, half nursing it and wondering with each sip as it got warmer if it was better to discard the entire thing. Reclining into the vinyl plastic seating, your feet resting on an empty chair, you surveyed the rest of the room in your dark corner.

The rest of the cadets where playing some sort of mix between beer pong and King’s Cup with every cup filled with an assortment of liquor ensuring everybody was getting shitfaced on a timely basis. You particularly weren’t up to it, and decided to watch instead at the fun everyone else was having, until someone piqued your attention.

From the midst of the crowd, you spotted a woman walk her way up and sidle up to you and take a seat next to you. She was short, wearing a navy suit, her hair in brunette ringlets bouncing as she walked, and her face with a porcelain complexion.

“Hi Veronica,” You start, letting your stony and guarded facade to keep all the men at bay easily slipping as your friend slipped into the booth beside you to your left, and joined you in spectating the rest of the festivities.

Veronica, a verifiable beauty was one of the secretaries to the Colonel, and she seemed chuffed at having to escape her workload by slipping in undetected to the party the cadets had organised.

“Aah.. I didn’t peg you for a beer person,” Came a sweet southern voice as she gave you a charming smile. Veronica was one of the few staff members that gave you a warm welcome, a strong handshake and a look in her face saying ‘good luck with the sausage fest’ when you first arrived at the air base.   
“It’s the only thing that they had,” You replied simply, moving over a little as she shimmied a little closer to you with a soft squeak of protest from the vinyl.

“You not joining them? Everyone did pass their flying tests thanks to you. Even Jerry’s got good enough, which is honestly nothing short of a miracle. 

Lord knows how bad he was. Nobody wanted to be in a formation flight with him, he’ll knock into everyone like a pinball machine,” She replied with a soft chuckle as she took a swig of her beer, perfectly manicured nails holding onto the ice cold bottle. Jerry was currently trying to and unsuccessfully doing a keg stand unassisted, almost roundhouse kicking a nearby cadet in the head.

“But you…you totally whipped everyone into shape, it’s kind of amazing actually,’ She continued, and you couldn’t help but let the smile crawl on your face.

“Pfeh, stop it, you’re making me blush. I still gotta pack for tomorrow, they’re shipping me off to Arizona for the next set of cadets to train. I swear to Christ,” You start putting the beer bottle to your lips as you continued,

“The next set of people calling me Dot as a nickname is gonna get shit thrown at their head.” You start and look at the beer bottle before placing it on the dusty table.   
“Is that because you’re from Ozzi… Aussie… Oz?” She starts. The attempt at rounding out the ‘o’ sound at the start of the word with her harsh American accent widened your smile. It was difficult enough for anyone to attempt to change the tones of the vowels and you had to give credit where it was due.

“Stop it! I’m trying my best,” She said with a shove and you laughed,

“Yeah I know, I’m sorry, it’s just… funny, that’s all. You’re doing great,” You compliment with a smile and relaxed for the first time the evening.   
It was nice watching everyone party hard, but the exhaustion finally taking its toll on you was making your eyelids heavy, and you decided that you were turning in for the night.   
“I… should probably go. It’s been really nice chatting with you. If I’m ever in Nevada,” You start, and she smiles with a shrug, standing up and giving you a quick squeeze.   
“It’ll be good to catch up,” She finishes your sentence and gives you a small hug and a pat on your back, and you slip out undetected from the rest of the party.   
You didn’t want to think about the short hug, and how it stung a little that she didn’t hold on just a tiny bit longer.

You were thankful for the distraction at least, because you knew in your tired slightly tipsy self, any approach from any one of the boisterous and obnoxious cadets would have your mood plummet enough to show that they had annoyed you.

You had exited the tiny space of a room through the Eastern exit into the polished and sterile metal corridors, and you made your way with your hands in your pockets 

The Air Force base in Nevada had been your home for the past month, having been transferred from the wide open outback of Western Australia, working in the RAAF. There, you dominated the skies, collaging publications of your accomplishments from flight magazines in a scrapbook - ranging from fastest completion of a mission to excel in dogfighting, to the most charming smile.   
It was the closest thing that they’d have to a swimsuit shoot.

You weren’t surprised that you’d become famous internationally, and before you knew it, you were shipped off to the United States Air Force to help with training their cadets.

“Another year before I’ll be home again,” You said to yourself as you turned the corner, heading towards your room.

Smart footsteps on the metal floor rounding the corner caught your attention before the person came into view, as you spotted an older gentleman walk towards you with a yellow envelope. His smart business attire said he was off duty, and you jumped a little when you recognised it was the Colonel.

“Sir!” You said stopping to salute, and he met you halfway before addressing you by name.

“Ah, you’re not joining in with the festivities? I hope the cadets are behaving themselves without you in their presence,” He starts, and you smile wanely at the tiredness of even thinking about taking care of (read:babysitting) a bunch of rowdy wasted cadets.

“I need to pack for my transfer to Arizona, Sir” You respond with a straight face, and he nodded with a smile on his port face.

“Not a problem, I won’t keep you. Thank you for your help, it’s been incredible having you and we’ll miss you at the base. You’re welcome to come back anytime you wish,” he says with a smile before looking down at the parcel he’s holding.

  
“Of course, sir. It’s been a pleasure as well,” You reply, and eye the package he’s holding.   
“Do you want me to deliver the parcel as a last token of goodwill?” You ask with a small smile, and he tears his dark beady eyes from the parcel and nods once.

“If you can deliver it to Sgt Bucchanan’s office, it would be mostly appreciated, Lieutenant. I’ve been having issues finding Veronica to run this errand for me.” 

You almost pale a little at the request, something about the Sergeant, the way he nervously held himself, jumped at tiny noises and barked orders like he was under constant stress.

“I’d be happy to take the issue off your hand and do a delivery run,” You say with a smile, and the Colonel passed the parcel onto you.

He smiled, skin wrinkled and marred from pocket scars, and you saluted him before you turned around and turned right down a corridor that lead to the offices with slight trepidation.

The walk was quick as you sped up your pace, but when you rounded the corner to the corridor, you saw the door slightly ajar with a conversation you knew you shouldn’t be listening to.   
You slowed down to a gentle walk as you started to make sense of a muffled conversation, borderline on shouting.

“You can’t just waltz into General of the Airforce’s Office and say that there’s something hiding in the forest killing off our cadets! You’d be fired on the spot!” Shouted a voice that you couldn’t recognise. And by all means you had wanted to stop and turn around the moment you heard screaming, but by the time you walked over to the door the sentence had been spoken and you stood for a moment trying to comprehend the sentence.

Wait.  _ What? _

“We’ve lost two people so far in the month with unexplainable accidents. Explosions in mid air from ruptured tanks? Broken cockpits on crash landings that looks like it’s been punctured from the outside?  _ We’re  _ the one’s looking terrible on the records. We  _ can’t keep pretending that nothing’s wrong forever!”  _ Came the shout from the Sergeant at the end which made you jump.

Hindsight was in action as you realised you shouldn’t have been standing so close to the door left ajar, and you clutched your heart and looked around.

Well this was certainly awkward - either the occupants in the room would hear someone eavesdropping at the door, or someone would walk on you standing an inch from the door like an idiot.

You take a deep breathe to settle your nerves as the argument seemed to taper off inside to an icy chill, and exhaled slowly before you summoned your courage, and lifted your hand and knocked smartly on the door as it swung open.

“Sargeant, Sir! I have a package to give-”

You were interrupted by who you now realise was the Sergeant firing three times, as the gun was pointed straight at the other high ranked officer now lying on the floor in a rapidly growing puddle of blood.

You stood in shock, everything moving in slow motion as you held the parcel in one hand. Your eyes were bugged out at the other officer, clutching at one of his wounds with a gaping mouth trying to breathe, and rasped out:   
“Run away..,”

You tried to move, you tried to tear your eyes away from the sight of pooling blood staining the dark uniform black, the dying man, the pale face and his ragged attempt to breathe, and from the Sergeant looking at you with a cold indifference into you that only a killer could, as you overhead the conversation, and your brain caught up as you started to speak.   
“Maybe I should-” You spoke with a voice that you almost didn’t recognise as yours, before the Sergeant pointed the gun at you, and fired.

You knew you were never going to completely evade the bullet in the split second that you shifted into a sprinting stance, but the moment your body moved into action, the bullet ripped clean through the parcel. It zipped through with a confetti of paper and documents, spraying you with paper and parcel, and embedding itself neatly and hotly into your shoulder blade with a  sickening splatter.

Blood burst from your shoulder as you let out a sharp cry, feeling like a hot knife gouging through you left you momentarily breathless, and a throbbing pain shot through as you started to run. 

Your legs wobbled, the pain was white hot, blinding, screaming at you that something was wrong, and it took you all of your energy to start sprinting without falling on the spot. 

_ Move _ __   
You told your legs, your knees weak that were threatening to buckle.   
_ RUN _ __   
You screamed at your legs, demanding them to work and carry you out of harms’ reach,

_ Run, he’s right behind you! Just go! Run! For the love of God, fucking RUN! _

You clutched at your right shoulder as your body finally co-operated with your requests and you booked it.

Adrenaline coursing through your body and barely numbing the blinding throbbing sensation at every heavy step your body took as you sprinted through the corridor.

You heard a scream as the Sergeant shouted somewhere in the background.

“She shot the Lieutenant! The Australian- Someone call in reinforcements!  _ Stop her! _

Panic blinded you as you tried to think of an alternate route.

There would be guards and workers and cadets and personnel that would stop you at a moments haste, but you weren’t sure if anyone would take you seriously about the events that transpired, until you rounded the corner.

You heard the acoustic tapping of high heels on polished floorboards before almost skidding around the corner to see Veronica - stopping dead in her tracks as she saw you. You were bloody, white as a sheet and eyes big as dinner saucers, struggling to catch your breath, before a klaxon started to wail in the background.

“Attention everyone - We have a code Black. This is not a drill, we have a Code Black. Lieutenant (L/N) has injured a commanding officer - proceed with extreme caution, subdue her with force if possible- she is dangerous and could be armed, I repeat, we have a code Black- 

The voice over the speaker seemed to exasebate your panic, as you stood in silence, slightly swaying and looking at each other in shock. You stood there, stumbling a little, not sure if she would scream. If she would alert anyone. 

“What happened!”” She started, approaching you, looking around, business mode on, and hoping nobody storming the corridors would see you, and you gripped your bleeding shoulder, her eyes leading towards it and looking around.

“This whole base is under surveillance, I… it’s not safe here. However, if you’re able to steal a jet you might be able to make your way to a nearby bunker several kliks west,”   
You blink at her stupidly at such a plan, and you wonder how she was able to come up with something so quickly.

“What, they won’t, they won’t help me out here?” You ask, not wanting to believe that the whole military base was going to treat youw ith murder.

“Not even a fair trial? Can’t I hide under your bed?” You ask, plead almost, looking around as she took out a handkerchief for you to try and stem the bleeding.

“Huh… I didn’t ever think it’d turn out like this. I-” She started, and you tried to concentrate, brain screaming for a semblance of a plan.

You blinked, eyelids becoming heavy.

“I can’t say, you can stay if you want, but,” Veronica started, worry and fear painting her porcelain face before panic bloomed on it.   
“You have to go, I’ll say I’ll try to hold you down- Go!” She whispered, and pushed you as you ran down the corridor nearby leading to the Air Hanger.

The giant air hangar was empty of human life. Giant F-16s and a variety of jets parked in their bays, unmoving until they were to be used for aerial use. You had a particular affinity to the one with a half topless lady painted on the side. The lactic acid was starting to burn in your throat and lungs, the muscles in your legs were begging you to stop, and things were starting to blur, as you grabbed a helmet and parachute pack and heading to the mouth of the Hanger.

To your luck and great surprise, there was a jet ready. It had the all clear for take off, there was nobody inside. All you had to do sneak inside and take off.

This almost felt like a trap, like it was too good to be true. Did they rig a bomb in the f16? 

You remember off the top of your head from the roster you looked at this morning that there  _ was  _ a scheduled night aerial run for two of the senior flight pilots. You stumbled with the straps of the parachute, numb, bloody and sticky fingers pulling at the clasps over the cotton tank top and cargo pants you were wearing. You kicked off the extra break on the end of the wheels to stop it from automatically moving, and then started climbing the ladder. Another issue surfaced when you clambered in. You were going to freeze to death in the cabin without a proper flight suit, and forget about executing any death defying stunts without the blood rushing to your legs and making you pass out. 

And after you’d clear the skies, and found the bunker, where were you going to go next? 

The thought faltered you for a moment as you climbed the ladder to the top of the get and slid in, getting bloody handprints on the outside of the cockpit and strapping yourself in.

The stress from running and being on high alert alleviated the fatigue of your muscles as you sat on the cushioned chair, and it lead almost immediately to fatigue. Now the momentary respite had brought your attention to the throbbing pain in your shoulder, and it was starting to get painful to concentrate as thick blood started to trickle past the handkerchief onto your hand. And if you thought that was terrible, you couldn’t wait to get into the sky where everything would be ten times worse.

“Just… just a bit more,” You think, and start to launch the jet.

Acting like it was second nature, you go through the motions with setting the jet up, knowing very well that you can do everything in your sleep. 

You hear muffled shouts, you hear your name being called, and gunfire, and with a herculean effort, you take off on the exposed runway before bursting upwards to freedom.

All too suddenly, Inertia, pain, the cool biting air all make itself known as you shiver involuntarily against the chair and take off with a blast. Everything hurts, everything stings, and it takes all the strength and effort to to ascend and stay conscious.

Blood is running down the seat as you try to breathe, desperate to get oxygen flowing and to try and take it easy as you look at the map and try to reorient yourself.

The radio crackles into life

“Return to base immediately,” came a voice from one of the pilots.

Ah, you were wondering where they’d catch up to you. You weren’t sure what the legal technical term for stealing a fighter jet to get away from a crime you hadn’t committed was, but you kind of didn’t want to stick around and find out.

_ Would it be considered grand theft auto but with fighter jets? _ you wondered.

The crackle of the audio came back to life, and you focused on your breathing, sweat dripping off your skin.

“Come on Dot, it’s me, your pal, Chester. Don’t do this to me, over” Came the voice over the headset, recognising one of the senior flight teachers.

“If you don’t return right this second, we’re going to take drastic actions. Orders from above. You’ve got one more chance, over,” Came the voice, and then an uneasy silence.

You let out a rattling sigh as you clutched at your shoulder. There wasn’t much maneuvering in the open air when your nerves were singing out knowing something would happen soon. Right now, you’re sure that Chester has all visuals on you and is awaiting your next move.

You weren’t even sure where to begin with a rebuttal. Anything you’d say would be held up against you, if you made it back or not.

You quickly glanced over at the map. You had a while to go, so right now, a distraction was needed.

Taking a deep breath you made a move, and you knew Chester was anticipating it

“Permission to open fire, sir. Target has refused to co-operate or respond, over,” Came the steely voice over the comms, and you moved.

Gripping the joystick tighter with your right hand, you shifted it and started evasive maneuvers.

Executing a high-yo yo, making a sharp turn to the left to overtake him similar to a u-turn, and the comms crackled into life again as you swept past the fighter jet.

“Negative, stand by for confirmation” came the comms from the base.   
You regretted moving, as the pressure of the cabin intensified in a blinding white pain, blood dribbling from your shoulder was getting too much.

If what you were told by Veronica was correct, there should be a facility in the forest nearby that would lead to a road. The premise was charted and most pilots knew about its existence. It would give you more time to hopefully find supplies, and if you were lucky enough a motorist near the main road that didn’t ask too many questions about a random person bleeding from a gunshot.

Oh Veronica. If only you were able to thank her for everything that she’s done, the friendship and help and fighting chance she’s given you.

But nevertheless, you stay quiet. You’re not out of the woods as of yet, and you heard stories about how radio frequence communication gets choppy in these areas. 

Your train of thought shattered, the systems beeping as Chester was able to execute a high yoyo defence, the jet swooping in to close quarters just behind you, and you spun in a barrel roll heading towards the direction of the abandoned military base.

“Permission to shoot, sir, over!” Chester responded.

Something else pinged on your radar that was moving too fast to comprehend straight in your direction..

It was an angular and dark shape, and it had some sort of rotor on it. You would guess it would be a helicopter, but you don’t remember helicopters  _ ever  _ moving as fast as this one. 

That and you weren’t sure what you heard was even true.

You didn’t want to stick around to see what else it could do.

“Unidentified bogey, sir, over,” Came Chester again as you pulled the joystick up and zipped up to the clouds, and a new feeling of uneasiness joined the party of pain, fear and inertia that threatened to knock you out as you clench your teeth and your sweat soaked cargo pants.

Night had truly fallen, and the light blue of the clouds obscure your vision as you flew upwards. Droplets of condensation ran against the cockpit glass. The sweat on your skin mirrored the same. 

“Identify yourself, over!” Came the comms, and a smooth voice uninhibited by the crackle of static came into the comms.

“Well… there seem to be two juicy cadets out for the picking… I’m spoiled for choice,” the maybe helicopter replied.

“Identify yourself!, Ground base, permission to shoot, over!” 

Chester zipped up behind you and you blanched, watching the small complex appear on the map, getting closer and closer.

If you could fly just a little closer and then eject yourself, you’d be able to find the bunker. Unless Chester decided to follow through and eject from his jet as well, although you weren’t sure if he would be quick to leave it so fast with the availability of weapons and being able to fire them at you.

There was not enough blood in your system, stamina or adrenaline, or fucks enough to be able to deal with an unidentified flying Sex Hotline helicopter lady zooming at you on your map, and an asshole that wants to blow you out of the sky just because the guns on the jet were compensating for his dick, and you decide to make another gamble.

“Permission granted, over’, Came the disembodied voice from the air force base, and you pulled the stick down as you went into a nosedive and spun again in a different barrel roll to the right, eastward as bullets zipped behind you.

Systems were blaring, and you were barely able to concentrate before the smooth voice of a woman broke into your comms.

“It’s cute how you’re ignoring me, pretending that I’m sort of monster. I think you’re irritating, well, the male anyway. The other one I’m assuming is the strong, silent type. I think I like that one a bitmore,” She continued, and you looked, panicked onto the map.

There was no sign of her until the last second where you saw something, black, spindley with legs, or was it a helicopter blade? Unfurl. As Chester is lining up his sights at you from behind.

You close your eyes, you push down for another nose dive, and you exhale.

You cast the die. 

With a quick flick of your wrist and grabbing two levers on the side of your chair , you pull as hard as you can with a scream as pain floods your entire system. The cockpit blasts open, sending the chair, yourself into the cool air propelled by rockets. There are rockets, there’s firing from the other plane, there's cool wind that makes the sweat on your body feel icy, and a few things happen in quick succession that you’re unable to make in the cloudy night sky.

The jet that you were piloting that was on a steady nosedive to the ground was smashed to the side by the Helicopter that you had identified seconds before. The inky black of the night was obfuscating what was happening, but something had definitely latched onto it and quickly realised that you were getting away.   
You had been ejected vertically, giving you distance in the general direction (of where you hoped the bunker lay), and away from the jet that Chester was manning, shooting in your direction but stopping when your parachute had deployed.

A moment of panic grabbed you as you realised you were sitting and ready to be snatched out of the air like a video game item.

“Fuck,” You whisper to yourself, seeing the thing that had unfurled into a spider turn back into a helicopter, going to hunt at her prey.

But the zipping of bullets that Chester was initially aiming for your ship had hit the helicopter. And right now that ticked the ‘revenge’ box for her, because she alternated her flight path, had now jumped onto Chester’s jet.

You head the rending of mental, screeching of something being torn, and you twist your head trying to see what was going on.

Chester must have hit the helicopter before it jumped to his jet with the firepower he sprayed, because a splatter of gasoline had exploded somewhere. It drenches you, the chair you’re on and the parachute that has you deployed as you look up into the sky.

For a moment you’re not sure what it is. It’s bright blue, you’ve never seen anything like it before, and the smell is like gasoline. Panic slightly picks up on you, before you try to calm down since there’s no light source to set you on fire, and you let the parachute carry you downwards. The moon shines its gentle light on the unholy abomination as the explosion below from your crushed jet. It lights up the entire surrounding of the forest.

Your heart that’s been steadily pumping the remainder of your blood in the system stops when you see the sight with your head craned.

When you were five, there was a small model plane kit that your dad had received from a flight magazine. You had spent quality time together as he had cut out and popped tiny pieces of the fighter pilot from its plastic casing, and you had a go at painting it, glueing it, sticking the tiny stickers that came with the packaging in water before applying it to the wings with his assistance. 

Your favourite part was to put the little pilot in the cockpit, and left it on your shelves for you and your family to admire your craftsmanship. 

And you remember seeing a tiny tiny spider on it, how it clambered on top of the cockpit. And you wondered, how it would it feel for a tiny pilot to see a gigantic spider, trying to get in where the glass was the only defense between the pilot and certain death, and how it would go to defend itself.

Despite it being a premise of a B-Movie that would have been made, you never really wanted to know the answer. And right now, ] that the soft light from above and the hellish flames from below painted a horrifying picture. The jet roared past you, but the second you were able to focus on the scene was a site you wouldn;t soon forget.

The jet was lit up from below in hellish orange flames, catching the bottom of the jet, and spindly legs that encompassed and trapped poor Chester inside. You saw a pale face, with sharp teeth. 

Blue liquid dribbled on the outside of the jet, the wind blasting it back, further towards the back of the jet, and you watched as it zoomed at head of you and the spider repeatedly trying to get into the cockpit.

But you couldn’t think about that right now, you can't worry about the fate of your ex-coworker when you yourself weren’t in the clear as of yet.

Fear coursed through you, before your decent started to bring you closer to the tree line, and you fell into the tall pines.

You unbuckled yourself as soon as you came to a stop with a few meters off the ground, gravity and pain all coalescing onto you as you fall to your knees onto the forest floor. 

You get up, and start running.

You leap over fallen pine trees, scrabbling in dips, over tree stumps, fingers digging into the the bark and surrounding foliage to get moving, and you run for minutes on end with renewed vigour at seeing a two story spider attack a fucking jet.

That or the blue gasoline which… had more or less disappeared off you despite having sloughed off half of it off your skin. The irony of fuel adding to your energy was lost on you in that moment.

You’ve only taken a few steps before an explosion is heard, the explosion so intense and hard that you’re thrown off balance and you crumple to the ground.

So much for new energy. You try to move, but your can barely push yourself up and roll over to your front.

You lie face down, hoping that the blood doesn't attract wolves, that it doesn't attract the giant spider that had hitchhiked on a jet and had probably killed off Chester. You pause for a moment. You really hope that didn’t happen.

You were also hoping that you wouldn’t bleed out, and you cursed your stupidity and that you listened to Veronica. Of course in theory everything would be alright, but you had been shot.

You were bleeding out and if your left arm caked in your own blood hadn’t been an indicator, then the temperature drop and the fatigue would pull on you.

You lie there, listening to your heart beat thunder in your ears   
What the hell was that explosion anyway? Did the jet do a loop and then decide to explode? Was it the fuel that finally reached the exhaust of the jet? Did the giant spider make friends with Chester and then decided to take her for a joyride?

You try to connect the dots between the smooth talking woman over the communication device that seemed to hack in, and the behemoth spider like unfurling over Chester’s jet.

You couldn’t think of anything else. You didn’t want to agree with the concept that maybe crazy pants Sgt Bucchanan was right. 

You were just so tired, and the uncomfortable forest floor with a log poking into your right thigh was starting to become comfortable.

Maybe if you close your eyes for a moment, then you’d get more energy from a nap. You’d get up, feeling a little bit better and walk over to the Empty bunker that was closer now than ever. You’d take a shower, wash off this baja blast blue jet fuel off of yourself, find a chance of clothes, and then make your way to the road and hitchhike to the nearest town.

  
You’d say you were a college student with an engineering degree with a phantom accent disorder that had triggered after listening to Paul Hogan tapes over and over to perfect your Australian accent for a party trick.

And then you’d get into town and then figure the rest out.

Your eyelids fluttered closed, and you let the unconscious take over you, just before the approach of shuffling footsteps of an oncoming patrol found you face down in the dirt.


	2. Lieutenant Dan, Ice cream!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edit: 11/11/2019
> 
> \--  
I've amended the sentence where Silas mentions that the Air Base is used as a testing facility as it's a point I've missed when editing it before until now.  
Apologies for any confusion - as this work isn't beta'd I'll tend to it once it's been completed
> 
> Thanks and hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately... reader does not get any ice cream. Maybe next time.
> 
> TW for: Needles/Syringes (mentioned), Amputation.
> 
> Read up to for Amputation: In fact you’re not sure yourself when you move- and then skip to -'You’re too dangerous like this'  
Needles: From the paragraph for"“Get, get off me!” and skip to the asterixis.
> 
> If you wanna chat, my twitter is @crispycleanx :^)
> 
> Enjoy!!!

Unconsciousness was being a bitch to you, it seemed. 

It was as if it was holding your head under water, noises of a hospital room and voices seemed to be drowned out and away from the rest of the world. Mercifully, the pain that you had sustained from your bullet wound and exhaustion were muted. 

The doctors in the room were close ,you wanted to hear what they were saying, you wanted to hear if they had contacted your family. If you were indicted with larceny. You tried to spy on the conversation by pretending you were super deeply unconscious but everyone might as well be talking into the open end of a French Horn. Words and sounds were minced together, and you could barely figure out different people speaking let alone any key details. Fuck it. Fuck _ them _. You’re trying whether they like it or not, but at once a new wave of painless oblivion sweeps over you.

You let go of the attempt to fight for consciousness and succumb to the wave of unconsciousness once more.

Another attempt. You tried to sit up, you tried to breach the waves and scrabble for consciousness, but your body dropped like a stone in the waves.

It would happen a couple of times, you would swim closer to the top, wanting to awaken, fighting for the light, but you dropped back under like a buoy.

Until one afternoon, you opened your eyes.

Light blinding you, your eyes trying to focus and your vision blurred as you moved your head to the side.

The room at first glance looks like an office. Not particularly the first thing that came to your mind that something was off, but you supposed that you were in the Air Base hospital and you were awaiting a transit for a general hospital. But then again you were splashed with jet fuel and you had been out for a considerable amount of time. You think.

You were able to sneak a peek at your shoulder, a hospital gown over your tank top. 

Strange…

It had been patched up and bandaged, but still tender to move. You couldn’t see the handiwork underneath the bandages that had stopped your bleeding, but attempting to peel away the bandages was burning something fierce, feeling almost like skin was being peeled off. You stopped before you pulled off the top layer of derma.

How long were you out for again?

Bringing a hand slowly up, it wobbled, as if you just barely had enough energy to control it, and you rub your eyes. 

A parched throat was becoming more prominent, and you looked around to see if anyone would come in.

The room hadn’t had an update from the 90s; with stucco walls and a popcorn ceiling. The bile yellow ugly lino tiles screamed ‘hospital‘, but the ceiling screamed ‘80s office’.  
You looked around for something familiar, something that would ground you to where you were.

The menagerie of machines that monitor your heart beat, your breathing, and the IV drips and the blood bags that seemed to be linked together stand around you like silent witnesses. A _ lot _of blood bags.

Your vision is still blurry but if you squint just a little, the blood seems dark. For all your medical knowledge, blood in the veins was blue, until it oxidised. Then it was a deep red. You’re not sure if it was the bags the blood was held in, but some of the bags had a tinge of blue to them.

This didn’t feel right.

You’re now not sure if the US Airforce had decided to go to town on their own personal brand of retribution before calling in the Department of Home Affairs. But judging how little things kept sticking out, you were uncertain that you were anywhere in a Government facility.

The beginnings of a plan to get to the Australian Embassy in Nevada was starting to form in your head, but before the question of if Nevada even _ had _an Australian Embassy could take seed in your head, the door in the far right of the room opened with a loud squeak.

And the mystery of the faux hospital room began to unravel.

A man, tall, muscular, _ very _ handsome with scars running down his face with a blond silvery crew cut walked into the room.

You looked at him, noticing the tight ribbed jumper and cargo pants and utility belt told you very plainly that the US Air Force had _ not _ gotten it’s little hands on you, but some beefed up _ Street Fighter _ ex-military commander, who was running the joint like it was his - _ Apocalypse Now _ style.

If a video game character and the trope for mercenary leader had offspring, this guy fit the bill.

“Consider yourself very, _ very _ lucky to be alive,” He starts as he walks into the room, followed by two goons with masks.  
You supposed you’d be pompous too if you had personal bodyguards following you around, and it inflates your ego just a little bit to know that he had to bring body quarts to see _ you. _

Your smile thankfully doesn't make it to your face, and you open your mouth to ask where the hell were you and who the hell was he, where the scratchiness and broken voice sets on a coughing fit from you.

One of the mercenaries moves to the side from behind Silas’ right, following unspoken orders, and approaches the left of your bed and pours you some water in a glass. You take it, drinking it greedily, rivulets of water stream down from the corner of your mouth and dripping off your chin as you’re able to wipe the water away with the back of your hand.  
You were starting to slowly feel the strength return to you.

“We found you lying face down about 50 meters away from our base. Mind telling us how you got there?” He asks, and the mercenary refills your cup.

“I was taking a nap,” You start, voice crackly, and you cough before continuing, “I went for a walk, and decided that it was a nice, secluded spot. And really, I think I should be asking the questions, You know, since it’s on Government property… mr…”

He smiles. You don’t like that.

“Hmm… spirited. It’s Silas. You can just call me Silas, commander of MECH Lt (L/N)... or should I say, Dot,” He speaks, and you scowl at him before taking a moment to think about how he would know your nickname, let alone first name.  
“And besides, it’s not theirs if they don’t use it,” He responds to your question like an afterthought.

“Dog tags,” You start after a moment, and Silas smiles a touch, holding up the set of dog tags that they found on your body. 

“I do like someone that catches on quickly. We intercepted radio frequencies amongst military jets that pass overhead.

With our technology, we’ve taken hold of the perfect base that allows us to gather intel from the US Government. Intercepting communications, we’re able to acquire information on people that have been subjected to anything with Energon. I’m assuming you’ve had some experience with it,” Silas replies, and you narrow your eyes at him.

“What? Energon? What the hell are you talking about?” You ask, holding the refilled glass of water in your left hand.

“I assume you’ve come into contact with a blue like substance…? Although _ where _you got that from, I have no idea. That’s classified information.

You were saturated in it when we found you a week ago lying face down in the dirt. We found copious amounts of it coating your body. It seemed to adhere to your biological makeup and replace the lost blood that you had during your…. escape.” He looks at you, his eyes travelling to the blood bags that now radiated an ominous feeling.

You almost feel your brain astral project trying to process everything that he’s saying and trying to keep your mouth shut long enough to grab at information.

_ ‘WHAT! A WEEK?’ _You screech “What the hell have I been doing out for a week!? And what do you mean replace my blood stream,’ You ask incredulously. You don’t mean to lose your cool in front of an asshole, but this news was disconcerting to say the slightest. 

Your whole body shook with barely contained rage, your heart beating in your ears so hard you could just barely hear him, and you took deep breaths to calm yourself. 

And his demeanour wasn’t helping.

“Like I said. Recovering. You’ve lost a lot of blood. And the Energon acclimatising to your body? We’re not sure, we had to keep you under observation. Such assimilation has never happened to anyone like that before,” he replies like he’s talking about stocks.

You take deep breaths, noticing how his demeanour changed. And you knew that look. 

You wish you didn’t. A man who saw you as a means to an end, where he saw you as a piece of meat, where you would be the catalyst to greatness.

Hunger.

You don’t like that.

You’re not sure which expression you dislike more.

He continues. 

“High exposure of continuous energon tends to warp the brain… from the intel that we’ve collected over the comms range, it seems that you encountered a liason of ours who finally kicked the mental bucket,” He starts, and suddenly the actions of Sergeant Buchannan starts to make sense.

The guy was practically jumping two meters in the air at any sudden movement.

.

‘But an exponentially sharp increase in energon… that might provide interesting results. We're interested to see the end results on you.’

You take another look at the blood bags, and the match is lit deep inside you.

_ Fuck _ this guy.

You throw the full cup in an arc, cup hitting the wall two meters away from Silas to his right, the water exploding from the plastic cup and splashing the wall paper and lino.  
That’s it. New plan.

Exonerating yourself from charges that may or may not be laid out on your head was a little _ too _ambitious to roll out this second in a hospital gown, however toppling a small band of mercenaries that think they have the monopoly of the local Air Force base drinking water was something that was a little more manageable. 

Challenging, but in the scope of things, manageable.

“You should have placed an ad on craigslist. I'm not interested.” You reply tartly.

“You don’t really have a say in the matter,” Silas starts and you roll your eyes.

You let out a sharp burst of terse laughter before you respond.

‘Actually. yes I do. Neither of you are armed. And I’m going to fucking fight you for it,” You start, before grabbing the side of the bed covers and flicking them over as you attempt to literally jump out of the bed.

His expression remains amused.

You were so blindsided by your anger, you didn't stop to think why SIias had been standing the entire time by the door, giving you this monologue when there was a perfectly good chair sitting nearby. Even when he had two goons nearby to protect him on the off chance something happened.

Hell, three against one would be pretty tough, but you were pretty sure that you were able to take them on, and if Silas was closer maybe you’d knock him out for the count.

In fact you’re not sure yourself when you move, only realising too late that your feet hadn’t been moving for some time, that your feet and legs that were usually attached to you weren't working. And how you just realise that you hadn’t moved them in a bit and how moving your thighs, fake prosthetic stilts were supplied to give the impression of legs as you were lying in bed.  
A flair for the dramatic, a faint thought surface itself from the subconsciousness of your brain as your knees move, but was quickly forgotten.

You tumble to the floor from a foot high drop and you look at the scarred skin that rounded off at the stumps of your legs.

There was no more you, and any attempt to imagine moving what wasn’t there anymore was a phantom feeling. 

You should be able to wiggle your toes, you should be able to rotate your ankles and pinch the calves that you had spent hours upon hours toning to be able to push your body to the limit.

But there wasn’t.

Your legs had been cut off.

Your fury changed to horror, panic rising like a sharp blade in your throat, until you turn to see the calculating look on Silas’ face.

He was watching you, seeing your reaction like it was nothing more than someone explaining a chart about profits had gone up by the reduction of detrimental software that had been making a job difficult.  
Predictable.

“You’re too dangerous like this. We had to take some liberties before we start working together,” He starts, and you almost don’t hear him with the tunnel vision that sets right on his face that is painted red as everything dims from your blood boiling fury. Right now, you don’t want to be looking anywhere but your legs, and it's that moment panic flips back again into pure, festering rage.

Your eyes bug out as you rip the iv drip needles and every cord attached to you to monitor your vitals, and you scream. It’s guttural, is raw, it’s furious, it scratches the back of your throat as you turn on your stomach and start crawling. Blood dribbled onto your front from the half empty blood bags that are attached to an IV needle, water mixing with the liquid turning it a light purply brown, and Silas eyerolls as he goes to walk away.

_ “MOTHER FUCKER!!! YOU DID THIS!!! I’’LL KILL YOU, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!! I’LL SHOW YOU DANGEROUS!!! I’LL FUCKING SHOW YOU DANGEROUS!!! _” You roar, your voice hoarse and shrill when words fail to come coherently to you as you manage to quickly reorient yourself and try to bring yourself closer by standing on your hands upright.

The slickness of the blood and fluids on vinyl makes it too slippery to place yourself upright on your hands, so you fall face first back onto the vinyl tasting iron, and you start scrabbling as fast as you can towards him.

The pace is unmatched, and maybe if you had your legs you could have launched into a tackle that would have him flat on his ass.

He outclasses your movements, and he takes a last look at you before he leaves  
“Sedate her and then show her to her cell. Welcome to MECH, (y/n)” He speaks, and walks away.

Your breathing comes out in ragged gasps as you scream as the two mercenaries approach you cautiously before you make a swipe for one of their ankles, and one takes a step back as you try to get to him.

Before you’re able to even try to scrabble in the merc’s direction, you feel a heavy weight collapse on you from behind that pins your arms to the ground.

“Get, _ get off me _!” You try to scream, but you know it’s useless. It’s useless, and the thought that your life is on the turn for the absolute worst should make you feel like garbage and that itself should placate you.

But it’s _ these _ guys’ existence that makes your blood boil, that its these bastard’s fault that they’re poisoning the unwitting occupants of the Air base and act like there’s no repercussions, and you grit your teeth as your head is slammed by the merc on top of you, and you feel a sharp prick in your neck before you’re administered a sedative.  
Consciousness waves goodbye as the asshole unconsciousness waves hello, and you succumb to the dark.

***

It’s been 3 days.

You had woken up from your induced nap to a brick wall with bars separating the last one to the corridor, and you tried not to roll your eyes at how cliched this was.  
But you supposed this cliche was there for a purpose.  
You don’t know how to really process that this room probably existed before MECH moved into the abandoned storage hanger, and you decide now that you have some time alone, it’s best to process what you’ve gone through.

Seeing that your escape/first degree murder attempt had been undermined with the lack of legs, you decide that it’s best to reassess your situation.

You were stuck with a bunch of mercenaries that are totally ok with performing vile and inhumane experiments on random people.  
Okay, how do you get out?

A whole list of ideas begin to pile up but are whittled down to ‘crawling through the bars of the corridor for escape’, and ‘through the window of my cell to outside that's too high for me to reach.’

The pure fury and blind rage had long whittled down, replacing it with hopelessness and a suffocating anxiety.

Honestly, you try not to think about how you don’t have any legs, but it’s obvious. You can’t disengage from the thoughts as even unconsciously when you used to cross your legs at the ankles, the feeling lets you know that there’s nothing there anymore.

You’re robbed on such a personal level, you don’t know how to process it. And despite how you feel you need to start to accept the situation - the fact of the matter is that you don’t even want to start.

You bite your lip and tried to choke back tears, trying to placate your desperation by thinking of the most logical stream of action if you were still in the Air Force base. If you stayed in the same spot where you held documents, you’d have died from gunshot wounds.

Or you’d be arrested, and then taken to the hospital, and then you’d stand a trial. And would you win this trial? Probably not.

The lack of your knowledge about the United States legal system was there, but you assumed anyone, ESPECIALLY a visitor to the US with such a prominent position with contact and access to fighter jets had breached such a delicate and important relationship that no one will ever grant another person such a chance.

You groaned into your hands, tears slipping through them and dripping on the pillow your head lay on.

Fucking _ idiot! _

So you made away into an aircraft to get away from the metaphorical firing squad to your career, and therefore caused a death from a giant fucking spider that had landed onto the cockpit of Chester’s jet.

Okay… so you still didn’t have any answers to that one either.

You thought back to something more concrete.

How Veronica had encouraged you to do the most batshit crazy thing and escape from base.  
Couldn’t she have hidden you under her bed or something? 

Or in a locker? And then you escaped through the vents?

You tried not to focus too much on the insurmountable questions that seemed to be increasing in frequency at the possibilities that could have taken place. Somehow you had a feeling you knew the answer, but you didn’t want to accept it.  
So you focused on the crazy.

Was it really a giant spider that you witnessed?  
The answer was a definite no before the events of yesterday.

Maybe it was just something that they had created, a new weapon that could unfurl into a spider, and being piloted by someone else.

You fell into an uneasy sleep after that thought placated you for the moment.

The rest of the next day had you alone with your thoughts. You had to relearn navigating around the room, and it was a good test of strength and how you needed to become stronger in your upper body if you were to succeed with an escape. The room had been modified slightly to help you accomodate you to your surroundings, and you supposed that you were here for the long run. There was a sink, a bed and a lavatory.

You washed your face, teeth and hair, short of drenching yourself with a bucket of water as you sat on top of a step ladder. You wondered if they were monitoring you and making sure that you hadn’t ried to kill yourself or bite your tongue off in the attempts to throw a spanner in the works of their grands cheme.

In the top corner of the corridor of the wall and ceiling peeked at a small cctv camera, and you sighed to yourself as you were able to get off the bench that helped you to the sink.

If it wasn't for your strength, this would have been a lot of a harder task to accomplish.

The other biting feeling was your family. Truth be told, you … didn’t have much left except your sister. Knowing that there was no way to contact her, drove a nail through your heart. It would have been folly to try and contact her someway if the chance presented itself, because knowing what had transpired more or less she’d be currently embroiled in a global controversy. 

If she saw you after she got through the emotional turmoil of losing another family member and having to deal with the media, she’d kill you yourself.

That seemed to placate the heartache for now, so you were glad you’d leave it where it was.

Sometimes you had a merc take you to the washroom where you had a small amount of time to wash yourself, and then be blasted with water in lieu of a shower. You tried not to spit venom and bite them when they came for you - but only for those particular mercs.

You had clothes provided, a classic merc look - black ribbed tank top and cargo pants that were standard fit to your size (you wondered where they were getting them). You had medical checks every day to see how you were fairing with the threat of energon poisoning, and you had meals provided three times a day.

You so much as looked daggers in the people approaching you.

If looks could kill, there’d be a bloody hallway a la _ Braindead _ mode.

“Hey, get ready. You’re needed by SIlas,” Came the voice of a masked merc one morning, and you shot him a look. 

“Tell him to go fuck himself. Or bring him here and I’ll tell him for you,” You reply staring at the ceiling.

“Orders are to collect you. I’m coming into the cell. If you lash out, I’m going to have to sedate you. Or with beatings. You’ve got a visitor, so be on your best behavior,” HE speaks to you and goes to the door to the cell.

A visitor? If ti was sgt Beauchannan, you'd rather shoot yourself in the face.

“Who’s the visitor,” You demand more than ask, trying to sound angry. You find out very quickly over the past couple of days unfortunately fast that being furious on a 24 hour cycle, was _ fucking exhaustig. _

“Do you understand?” He asks, and you look at him, annoyed that he won’t respond

“Who am I meeting,” You ask again.  
“It’s a surprise,” He replies with, and you continue your staring competition with the merc.

You don’t know who’s winning  
“Fine, whatever,” You reply as you look back to the ceiling.

You decide a little too late after threatening to kill Silas that its probably best to be as amicable with mercenaries. Maybe they’d be glad that you’re helping them out and you could find an escape route with any privileges they provide, before you’ve been used for whatever purpose that you were captured and then executed behind the building.

“Well if Silas is there, you mind carting me over to him so I can punch him in the dick?” You ask with your arms crossed.  
“No,” Comes the reply and you roll your eyes.

The cell door opens with a heavy swing, and he leads in a wheelchair for you to sit on to which he helps you to it, before he takes you out of the cell corridor.

The other cells you notice, are empty, although there are signs of them being used. Were other people kept here too?

You save this information for later as he wheels you outside to the inside of the hanger. 

There’s a helicopter parked near the entrance of the hanger, there are other mercenaries standing around, talking. 

You wonder if it’s remote controlled, but from a close up view, it seems to have its propeller close by, and there’s no damage to it.

All of the mercs are covered with the standard ski mask with goggles. There are a few that have taken up position on the catwalk with sniper rifles. You even spot a lone female mercenary talking to one that’s almost twice her size.

You don’t have too much to wonder what will happen next as you’re let outside to a clearing.

Despite the fact that you’re neck deep in enemy territory, it’s nice to be outside in the sun and wind, and you feel your mood improve a fraction.  
It’s small, but it’s a victory you’ll take

There’s a makeshift landing pad has been made that you’re being careened to.

Although landing pad is moreso just a term for a big patch of dirt outside. It’s about the size of half a football field, and in the middle stands a shiney F16.

It’s grey, and adorned with a purple cockpit.

That’s… kinda weird.

Silas is standing outside talking to what you suppose is his right hand man, and turns to see you, his eyes training and looking down. God, you wish you were taller, just so that you wouldn’t have to jump to poke his fucking eyes out.

“You made it. I’d like you to introduce you to someone special, (Y/n),” He starts.

“Go fuck yourself,” You start, pleased that you’re able to tell him that but otherwise exasperated with yourself that you weren’t able to hold a second of good grace before Silas. He’s wearing a shit eating smirk.

“You’re going to go for a ride. Knowing your skill set with piloting planes, I think you’d find this quite easy to slip in to practise with,” He responds as if he’s talking to you like a small child.

There’s a few things that you want to think through. Like, how is a merc going to throw you up several feet needed to access the jet. 

Or how you’re going to pilot the jet without specialised equipment for pilots that are missing their feet. 

Or how you’re just going to fly the fuck away the moment you get in and pass those two previous problems.

You imagine Silas barking orders to his medic team to amputate your legs, and then turning 45 degrees to the right another merc and barks at him to order flight aids for people with disabilities off ebay.

You don’t really get a chance to retort, and you don’t get a chance to launch yourself at his ankles like a rabid chiuhaha and rip _ his _ legs off because the _ fucking jet starts moving _in a way only possibly by an Eldrich god.

‘Transforms’, you find is such a crude way to describe the mesmerising process that the jet unfurls like a mechanical flower. Each movement is calculated like a dance, each part works in tandem and harmony to unfold and fold into something else, each arm is splayed out, twisted in and out, forming something else, something so grandiose and incomprehensible by the human mind. And _ yet, _ you cannot get enough before the jet unfurls to the behemoth that stands before you.

It’s pointy, no soft edges, slits for eyes and an unforgiving look to you, perfectly poised and all edges in every way, and it looks _ into _you.

Your mouth is hanging open at him, and your eyes widen as the giant takes two earth shattering steps, and bends at the waist to look at you up close as you press up against the back of the wheelchair.

You try to move the wheels back, but the merc behind you is standing stock still and won't let you budge even a fraction from the face that’s right in front of yours.

Your heart is thundering in your chest as your bugged out eyes drink in every tiny flecked and scuffed detail of the titan that stands before you.

“Starscream, this is (Y/n)(L/N). She will be accompanying you with the search for energon mines and deposits. (Y/n), close your mouth, you look like an idiot,” Silas responds.

Starscream looks at you after he moves a little back, and the beginnings of a smile stretches out like fluid metal across his what you assume could be called his face.

Okay. Good, he’s not going to smoosh you into the ground like an accordion.  
“Another one? I do hope that this one lasts… however I can appreciate when someone acknowledges the delicate finesse that I possess when transforming,” He spoke. No, more like made love to your auditory senses with beautiful appropriation of talking.

“Maybe I’ll keep her,” He purrs and Silas turns around with the most unpleasant look on his face, which funnily enough was almost the complete opposite of how you were feeling right now.

If this is the reaction Starscream is giving Silas then you _ like _ this guy.

You closed your mouth and swallowed the saliva that drips down your shirt after the behemoth turns to Silas, hoping that he couldn’t sense that you need a change of underwear.

“Starscream…. Remember our deal,” He warns in a subtle lit in his tone.

Not cool. Why is it that you’re stuck between some literal larger than life alien that probably has the vocal frequency to make you a melty mess on the ground, and a dickhead with a penchant of sawing people’s legs off.  
Well.. You don’t think he was the one, but you weren’t conscious to see who was the one with the hacksaw.

Silas turns around to you as you try desperately to process what the fuck just happened and trying for the blood not to flush to your face.

“You will accompany Starscream-"  
“LORD Starscream-” He interrupts, checking his talons like they were polished nails.

“Accompany him to look for Energon deposits. You will carry this scanner,” He starts, a mercenary strapping a scanner to your right wrist. It's about the size of a touch phone, and slightly blockier than one.  
“You’re tasked with holding this scanner. It will disable if Starscream touches it, or tries to take control of it in anyway. You will report anything that seems on the off chance that he does try to do anything. Do you understand.” He says, more demands than asks.

You’re still staring at Starscream.

Starscream makes eye contact with you.

He gives you a smirk and if he so much winks at you, you think you’re going to have to throw your pants into the wash as well.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Silas replies as he turns away, and you watch as Starscream looks at you momentarily with an amused expression, before his attention is directed to Silas who walks closer to him.

“She’s a valuable commodity. Don’t get her killed,” Silas responds, and Starscream narrows his eyes at him.

The fact that there’s a alluring danger that this robot has killed, and will continue to kill makes your heart hammer in danger of bursting out your rib cage, and your suspicions about him playing a lady killer just to perhaps get something from you is almost confirmed.  
Oh well. If he kills you it hopefully would be with his face between your legs - size regardless.  
“I’ll meet you back here in two hours time,” Starscream responds almost icly before he grabs you with a giant metal hand so fast and quick it leaves the merc behind your chair jumping back, and not enough time for you to process what's happening as he transforms again, and he blasts off into the sky.

You find your voice, and let you let out a piercing scream.


	3. Starscream and Hutch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nobody stop me from writing these godawful chapter titles

You’re screaming as you ascend higher into the heavens. It’s ear splitting, and you barely recognize your voice as panic and fear latch at your throat and squeeze for all its worth. You’ve never screamed for this prolonged amount of time in your life, and your throat is sore from the exertion. But after about half a minute later where you realise that there are no liquids excreting from the inside, digesting you slowly and painfully, or being crushed to death (despite the comfy and secure harness that's holding you to the chair) you realise that someone is trying to speak over you. 

Or rather, yell.   
“WOULD YOU STOP THAT!” Came the voice of Starscream around and in you as the voice vibrated through your body.

God almighty, you know knew how it felt to be Jonah. If the whale could talk. 

“Calm DOWN!” Starscream continues to screech, ripping you out of your reverie, and the irony of Starscream screaming louder than you to calm your nerves is lost on you in that moment as you stop yelling. 

You slip into a slight panic again and you start hyperventilating, and part of you is wondering if you've accidentally initiated a pissing contest with a giant alien with who could scream the loudest. 

Starscream hasn’t particularly broken the higher octaves to respond back to this challenge, but you’re convinced that the ‘scream’ in his name is for something, and you’re not particularly fond of the thought of Starscream blowing up your eardrums and then your head  _ Scanners  _ style with a piercing scream Humankind was not meant to hear.

You close your mouth after you realise you’ve been letting it hang open for the past minute, and force yourself to breathe steadily while you take in your surroundings.

You are currently in a cockpit with the console of the highest polished deep purple. It fits the scifi genre like a glove, with a beautiful screen in front of you, a joystick in between your legs with a symbol emblazoned on the empty space that you’ve never seen before.

You wiggle your legs a tiny bit in the leather seat, looking past the stumps, and you could see the levers on the floor, used for turning the jet’s wings.

“I’m… inside you. I’m sitting in your cockpit” You hoarsely respond, gripping onto the pilot seat and digging your nails into the leather so hard you hear a growl of frustration, and you relinquish your death grip on the leather.   
“Astute observation,” Starscream says a little tersely.

“Don’t touch anything, I’ll have you know that I’m able to fly myself,” Starscream responds, and lazily executes a barrel roll as to underscore his statement. The normal action that you could execute with ease has you thrown off on the edge slightly, and you dislike the sudden unfamiliarity on something you’ve done countless times, you could have done in your sleep.   
“Uh… ok.” You reply, and hold your hands in your lap as your breathing has evened out, noticing that the cockpit that you were in was circulating oxygen that you were able to breathe normally, instead of a pilot’s mask. 

You were kind of impressed, and that seemed to settle your nerves just a tiny bit.

“ You know, You’re the seventh person to have the privilege to ride in my cockpit,” Starscream started, matter of fact, once he could sense that you had calmed down significantly.

If you were in any other condition, you would have burst out into giggles that Starscream said ‘cock’, but unfortunately your self preservation instincts of being ejected out of him and facing a messy death on the ground prevailed.

“Oh, really? What happened to the other seven,” You ask tentatively,

“Reallocated to other positions in MECH,” Starscream responds, and you decide not to press on with the sparse response.

‘So… what are you doing working with Silas?” You ask, gently probing where it you hoped he wouldn’t crush you in one piece by saying the wrong thing.

“Silas requests that I locate Energon deposits for powering his technology, and I in return request that I am able to utilize the mines for Energon consumption,’

“I see...Do you know what kind of projects Silas is working on that needs Energon to work?’ You ask, the worry bleeding out slightly in your voice.

There’s a beat, before Starscream responds again.

‘No.I do not know the specifications. From what I was told, it’s to do with an engine of some sort.’

That… didn't make any sense.

“So… nothing with human experiments?’ 

“I’m not going to repeat myself,’ he replied in a sing song fashion that had your hair standing on end.

You swallow thickly. Starscfeam could be lying to you, but you didn’t want to test his anger by calling him a liar so you decide to change the topic to somewhere else, again. Granted, you’d like to ask more questions, and maybe push your luck a bit more, but your nerves are shot to shit and you don't want to take your chances with a titan who might be on friendly terms with Silas.

There's another short pause before you continue on a different path.

“You’re ok with that?’ You hold in a breath, not sure if he;s giong to start getting angry at you for asking so many questions.

“No. However, Silas projects are short term. The Energon that they use is in minute quantities. as long as I can find anything other than crumbs, that should suffice for now.’

You bite your tongue and hold it at the mention of Silas. You weren’t sure if Starscream was stupid or just too stubborn for his own good, as any sort of partnership with Silas was eschewed in his favour.

And you knew that just by  _ looking  _ at Silas.   
You’d only met this giant robot for less than half an hour, but you sorely hoped he wouldn’t fall on the operating table for Silas to pull him apart.

“So… Energon. You’re saying that its the fuel you need to survive, is that right?” You ask, trying to redirect your attention to something else.

“Correct.”

There’s a small lul in the conversation as you process this.

“Makes sense… you’d want to find a way to sustain yourself on a different planet… What planet are you from?’

It’s becoming difficult to try and distract yourself from the depressive state that's comfortably settled on you, beating down on you heavily and suffocating you.   
Starscream might be a third party with Silas, but he was still working with him.    
You were trapped either way, so you hoped that Starscream was a tiny bit more lenient to you than Silas.    
On the upside, at least you were getting along way better with him than Silas.

“Cybertron… It’s lightyears away from this place” Starscream has started slowly, and despite the fact that he has been talking to you for the past 10 minutes, the mood in his tone is subdued, and you grow quiet as you look at your scanner.

You take a moment to think about yourself. You’re not too different,, well that was an understatement of the century if you’re being honest.

But there was the tiniest smidge of similarity

You were both far from home away from anyone that you had had comfort in knowing and thrown into a different place.

You couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the guy.

A small beeping takes you out from your reverie.

“Seems like we’re another 10 minutes away from the mine,” You respond.   
Silence again consumes the cockpit before you hear a familiar tapping noise like a printer, a fax machine, or a modem clicking away. It’s that’s on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t identify it for the life of you.

“Lord Starscream,” You start, and he lets out a hum of approval to show that he’s listening.

You suppress a shudder.   
“What… what’s Cybertron like?” You ask, deciding to focus on the fantastical.   
“Cybertron has been lost during the civil war between the Decepticons and the Autobots… it is now a desolate husk of a planet. But before that? It was wonderful. Chrome towers soaring into the stratosphere… it’s unlike anything tha this place has to offer. However, there are benifits to this place.”

“What’s that?”   
“The rain. The previous Council weaponized the rain on Cybertron to enforce control over the populace. They were not particularly merciful to those participating in the uprising,”   
You sat in shock.

“What the hell, are you for real?”   
“Unfortunately, yes. Earth… while it might be primitive in a variety of aspects comparing it to Cybertron, does have it’s charm, I suppose,” He replies, and he’s interrupted with a small beeping as he circled sharply around the entrance to a hidden cave.

“It seems that we have arrived. If Silas has said that you used to be a pilot, I want to see what you can withstand. Keep your hands to yourself when I transform, I don’t want to pull out any of your limbs from my transformation seems,” Starscream spoke cooly, and your heart hadn’t had a chance to jump up your throat as Starscream dropped suddenly and descended to Earth with a force so great that you felt the breath you were taking sticking inside of your chest.   
“Wait!-” The words die in your throat as you’re subjected to an intense pressure of gravity zooming downwards, and you grab onto the chair as your eyes close shut.

Alien cockpit or not, you were still subject to the forces of gravity, and your vision begins to swim as you try to breathe properly and keep yourself conscious by sheer force of effort

“Star….scream... “ You choke, as he corkscrews down to the mouth of the cave, the centripetal force and gravity punishing you as you descend. And before you know it, before the force turns your insides to mush, he’s flipping upwards gracefully, and he transforms into a graceful landing and an earth shuddering thud.    
Machine and darkness blurred around you as you felt the buckle that held you to the seat undo itself, wind and the roaring and buzzing of machinery in your ears changing as you felt the sun on your face, and a sudden drop before you were caught again.   
You opened your eyes and almost jumped, looking at Starscream through the delicate and spindly talons of his servo, grasping you so gently he might as well be holding a baby bird, but with enough protection from falling out that you were effectively caged.   
“Bastard….. I don’t have… a special suit… for this sorta thing.” You rasp, eyesight blurry and hands clammy as you close your eyes and let yourself fall unconscious. You hear Starscream call your name, one, twice.

the third time, His voice becomes distant and you succumb to the darkness.

Almost immediately, The world seems to slowly swim back again as you open your eyes, looking around to see you’re back in the cockpit with the seat lying down.

that… wasn’t possible..   
You blink, trying to recount what happened, when the all encompassing voice of Starscream once again makes itself known.   
“You fainted,” He starts, and he sounds almost.. Well You’re not too sure. Surprised? Shocked? Offended? 

  
You decide to go with offended.

You would say worried but you were not going to think about how gentle he was with you in his talons before and give him the impression that he _ actually cares  _ or something.

Now wouldn’t that be funny.

You were planning to tear him a new one just for the fact he dropped down without warning spiraling to Earth just because he could and almost killing you. But the fact that he had you in his cockpit with the glass popped open circling fresh air and the chair somehow pushed down so that you could lie down, oddly… kind.   
And kind is where you’d draw the boundaries. YOu weren’t going to call it anything else and think about it, and make it devolve into a mess of emotions, just because someone had shown you kindness

“I… yes. I fainted. I can’t actually subject myself to too much gravitational force without passing out. I’ll need to be wearing my pilot suit to do so,” You spoke .

“And where  _ is _ your pilot suit?” Starscream asked, slightly accusatory like you were a small child with a predisposition to losing their belongings.

“I don’t have one. I guess they would have wanted to see what would happen if I flew without it considering I don’t need a helmet to breathe in your jet form,” You reply.

“ ...hm. I’m guessing you’re well enough to go?” Starscream asks, his voice reverberating through you.   
“Yeah, I think so,”

The sight of you back to normal had him transform once again without warning, and had you with your eyes shut trying not to spew your guts out with the sudden vertigo.

You suddenly find yourself in his servo again.

“There’s no need to be so frightened,” Starscream crooned as you tried to breathe, but your terrified breathes only came out in short spurts, and you failed to stop hyperventilating.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he added, and you get out a soundless gasp as you felt him gently brush your hair out of your face with a razor sharp talon.

You’re still shocked, and even more so when the sentence you think is going to be finished with an ‘after this of course’ never happens.

  
You cracked open an eye to see him smirking before he slowly and gently kneeled down and placed you sitting upright against the mouth of the rocky entrance to the cave, and he brings a talon to his mouth in the universal sign of  _ ‘silence _ ’.

He then points to your wrist, and then to his, creating a loop around his servo with his talons, and gently pulling his wrist through the loop.

_ Take off the scanner. _

You looked at him a little belatedly before back at the scanner, and then slowly, tentatively grabbed your sleeve and started to pull the scanner throughout your wrist.

It takes a minute of you doing so gently, trying not to make too much noise with bothering the velcro before you’re successful. You place it carefully on the rock beside you.

Almost immediately, once you look forward, Starscream extends his servo, grasping you gently, and then comically watching him take a giant step as quietly as possible into the mouth of the cavern, and then a few more, before you’re out of sight of the scanner.

Your hands gently grasp around his talons, and now that you’re not hyperventilating, you’re able to feel and look at them up close.    
  


Starscream’s limbs are borderline nightmare fuel for you the moment you lay eyes on them. They were so  _ long  _ and spindly, so cold looking and so fake. But when you were grasped by him initially feeling uncomfortable with the way that his metal talons supported you, you had gently eased into a more comfortable seat where one of his talons moved so that you had somewhere to support you and sit properly.

His sharp pointy digits, which looked like they could cut you at certain angles, sharp enough to slice paper just by brushing up against it was surprisingly delicate and more cylindrical. You were more in danger of something snagging in the joints that held his talons together, and despite the small surface area of his talons, they seemed to exude warmth.

You’re so enthralled and absorbed by it and distracted by his digits that you miss the sneer he pulls at the scanner before he walks in further in.

As Starscream starts to take shuddering steps into the awning, you’re steadily blinded by the darkness in the cave. The natural darkness swallowing everything in its wake the further you walk in.

Starscream shifts his talon, and he’s moved to grasping you like a doll as he keeps you close to his chassis, hearing the slight whirring of his internal mechanisms and the shuddering footsteps he takes inside the cavern.

The warm he exuded from his chest was comforting in the chill of the cave.   
“We can talk freely now,” Starscream speaks, and you blink in surprise.

  
“You… how do I know that you’re not monitoring me and reporting me back to Silas. For all I know, this could be a trap.” You ask, incredulously. You’re almost impressed that he’s so upfront with you that it's borderline genius.

“Hmm, I guess you do have a point,” He replies distractedly as he seems to be scanning the interior of the cave with the coals of his eyes.

“However, seeing that you’re incapable of walking, and you are bound to the cell that Silas keeps you, I can deduce that you have nothing to offer than physical skills to Silas, such as flying a jet. And if you don’t have one or I disappear without warning… you have no purpose to him.”

Ouch. The beak and hopeless reality stars eating at your heart like a pack of piranhas on a cadaver, and you know he’s playing on your emotions. 

Despite the fact that this is a  _ very  _ clear shtick that he wants you to join him and use you for whatever purpose, but you’re too wrapped up in the concept of a buddy cop dynamic including a giant transforming alien for you to really take his superficial bait.

  
“And… can I ask why me? Anyone else in the MECH facility could be paired up with you and fly with you. Honestly? That's like a wild fantasy come true. Flying with a giant from another world.

If you’re doing the flying then what’s the point of getting a pilot to be paired up with you?”   
“Hmm… you know if you weren’t flattering me so much, I would have been worried you’d actually have ties with Silas. You raise an interesting argument -almost like you don't  _ want  _ this.”

  
YOu open your mouth open and closed, suddenly feeling like you’ve been submerged in ice cold water, before Starscream continues, and the realisation dawns on you later that he’s  _ joking _ .

the conversation moves along swiftly.   
“Pfah, as if.” (You wonder how he makes that noise with his mouth)

“The other mercenaries. None of them have  _ any  _ respect for me! Any of them!. They think they own the joint and think they’re better at flying by grabbing at my joystick! One of them I ejected from my cockpit because he  _ was so insufferable,. Oh, look at me! I know how to fly a jet because of my interests in aerial human media!I know everything!”  _ Starscream mocked in a high falsetto.

Despite the fact that you’re six meters up in the air, you’re floored. 

You cannot believe that you have a giant robot that’s  _ bitching  _ to you about the shitty working conditions that he’s been given. And if you weren’t being held in his grasp, you could have easily closed your eyes and pretended that you were gossiping about work with a friend that you've known for a long time.

But also you’re eternally grateful you didn’t grab his joystick and initiated some horrible interstellar faux pas about alien genitalia. 

Although, if you;re being honest it has piqued your interest.   
“Let me guess, they were all guys?”   
“Hmm… is that the state of human males on this pitiful earth? Should I … dispose of them?” Starscream asks with a lilt of his voice, and a sneaky look down to see if his joke has been understood.

  
It’s a success, because you burst out laughing for the first time, and it feels wonderful.   
“You know, I’m trying to stay neutral about this relationship, and it’s not even been an hour that I’ve met you. You’re working with the bastard that cut my legs off, but you’re making it really hard not to like you, you know,” You reply, candidly.

Starscream’s evident smirk has dropped off his face. 

It’s almost pitch black, and you shiver slightly.

The temperature has started decreasing substantially the further you walk into the mine, but you’re shivering for a different reason as your heartbeat begins to speed up.

  
“Lieutenant….” He starts, thoughtful   
“Please, just call me (y/n),” You reply, your heart in your throat.    
Now you were scared. You’re not sure if you said the wrong thing, or Starscream was just toying with you before he was going to crush you in his grasp or feed you to some subterranean rolly polly that’s been mutated due to the Energon inside.

“(y/n)” he croons again, and you’re hoping that he doesn't find out that if he says your name enough times like that you’re going to become bioluminescent with the angry flush that you’re beginning to show.   
God. You  _ really  _ hope he doesn’t know.   
“I have a proposition.”   
“Yes?” You ask, your throat closing up.

The only thing in the dark cave is Starscream’s optics. They’re a deep glow, but in the darkness they seem to be like the pale moon washing over the dark earth, and they bathe over you in an eerie glow.   
You’re able to pinpoint every single infliction of emotion, and you’re startled to note that his facial expressions mimic that of a humans almost perfectly, and Starscream is  _ very  _ expressive.

  
“I have joined Silas in the hopes that I am able to build myself a tracking device in order to locate Energon. Energon is my, a  _ Cybertronian’s  _ lifeblood, fuel source, and energy to convert to weapons - and fortunately enough Earth… is ripe for the picking.

However, due to my defection from my faction… I lack the necessary equipment to locate enough Energon,” He starts, his eyes flickering from side to side.   
His optics deflect fear, pain, uncertainty.    
If you were stranded on another planet with the only way to obtain resources to survive to liaise with some mercenary faction, you couldn’t particularly choose to say no.

“And… I come in how,,,?” You ask tentatively. Your grip tightens on his razor like claws, and your hands are slick with what you hope is sweat or condensation.

“You’re not tied down with MECH, and I am also taking a gamble to say that you’re not wishing to join anytime soon after with what they did to you,” He starts, and his thumb gently shifts as you adjust your grip.

“Not only that, but you are integral to this plan, as if I were to physically touch the scanner, it will shut down, and I will have no way to reboot it,” he concludes.

“So… I humbly request your skills and efforts to help me crack the coding that MECH has placed on the Energon scanner, so that I might be able to fend for myself without having to rely on Silas,”   
You blink momentarily,   
“You… I’m guessing you don’t like him a lot?”   
Starscream scoffs, (you  _ had  _ to ask him how he did that).

“You have  _ no  _ idea,” he confides in you, and your mood perks up a fraction, to which Starscream almost eerily copies.   
“... Only … if you do something for me,” You reply, knowing that there was little room for negotiation.   
“Hmm… guess I was wrong. Guess I can’t really judge a book by its cover,” Starscream speaks, his voice soft, a lilt of amusement in his voice.

You were very aware that you could be playing you like a fiddle.    
The squishing could come later when you provided him the code to the Energon detector.   
  
“And what are your terms, (y/n)?” He asks cooly,   
You bite your lip, There are so many different things that you want, but logistically it’s cut down to a few. 

You want your old life back, but it’s gone up in smoke considering your records mark you as dead to the world. 

You want to see your sister and tell her that you’re alive and ok… for the most part, but an overseas excursion to Australia was severely not in the cards. You’d say hi, freak her out, start the grieving process again for her when you had to disappear and potentially put her in danger if MECH ever found out.

And then what are you going to do there?   
And flying with Starscream was really the only way to fly again, forget about growing a fake moustache and applying for the Flying Doctors Force, although it seemed like that was the viable option left for you.

Your heart sinks as you worry your lip between your teeth, deciding on a course of action.

  
“I know my problems aren’t yours. But at the least, help me stop Silas and by extension MECH,” you reply.   
You want physical retribution, despite the fact that you know it won't bring anything to you, this is what you settle for.   
  
Your head lols and the uncomfortable, biting feelings of your failures and errors swarm and fill you up until hot tears prick at your eyes and your throat clogs up like an old pipe.

“Hm.. and here I was thinking you’d like new legs,” He muses, an attempt to lighten the mood somewhat.   
Your head raises a little.   
“Hah… Maybe when I figure out what the hell I’m going to do when I get out of here, I’ll take you up on that if you’re still offering,” You reply and you rub your face.   
You realise that he might be able to see your reaction, and you feel embarrassed for being almost so open. But it's hard not to when he himself acted so candidly to you.   
Your mind sings it's a trap, but you’re in favour of pretending that he actually cares. And you know that's a bad idea

“I believe that a strong partnership will need to be present when you help me crack the code Silas has set for the energon tracer. And the same way extends when I help  _ you _ ’, Starsceam responds, perforating the ‘you’ with a gently press of his talon to your abdomen.

You squirm a little with a cross look on your face, and you pretend his touchyness was unwelcome.

“And after we complete our goals?” You ask, knowing very well that one wrong step, one wrong word and your life is over messier than the bad end of a choose your path adventure paperback.   
“We go our separate ways..” Starscream purrs, and you curl up your lip, looking down.   
  


You taken in a deep breath and steel yourself before looking at Starscream directly at his face.   
It could be all just a sick joke your brain was playing on your and you were hooked up to life support, in a coma.

Or perhaps Silas had asked this giant Alien to hook you in line and sinker, telling him that you were absolutely were his for the taking to do whatever he’d please if he could get any information from you.

The two very real possibilities weighed down on you.

But you were absolutely not going to go down without a fight, and you stick out your right hand to Starscream.   
“Ok. Starscream, I accept your offer on the terms that my conditions are met. I’m more than happy to help you to decrypt the Energon scanner for your uses, if you help me take down MECH and Silas,” you reply.

Starscream takes in your hardy expression, and he extends his giant servo to shake with you, as you grab onto the tip of his talon, and move your hand up and down..   
“But if I find out… that you double crossed me in anyway, I’m going to make you regret it,” You added.

The comment has Starscream laugh with a voice that’s 70% dark chocolate and it’s absolutely  _ delicious  _ if it weren’t so fucking irritating with him taking you for granted. To be fair, you were so much tinier than him, but your grilling look made him quickly change his tune when he saw you weren’t intimidated by his laugh.

He withdrew his talon and looked away a little nervously.

“The threat goes both ways,” He responds and you feel gratified that you stood your ground.

“Well then, partner. Now that we’re on equal footing, I look forward to working with you, Screamer,” You say with a smile and you hear a growl from him, as he continues his descent into the cave.   
‘Do  _ not  _ call me that,” He responds, and you let out a small laugh,   
“No worries, Starscream,” You say with a smile, and you feel his exhale radiating somewhere from his chest cavity as warm air covers you for a moment.

You shiver at the chilly temperature of the cave air, and your descent finally yields results, as you come across the deep and rich luminous ore embedded deep within the cave like giant crystals.

“Wow… I… I can’t believe people just don’t see this at all! There has to have been someone coming across Energon…” You start as Starscream gently places you on a crevice that’s cold and damp, and you gasp as you hold onto the rocks.   
“Stay here… I don’t want you to be irradiated with pure Energon. The last thing I need is for you to develop some sort of sickness,” He starts, before walking off with a purpose to the glowing ore.

The only thing you can really see is Starscream turn, and that’s because his eyes are two glowing coals at your eye level that float in the air. That and the stomping of his giant stilettos as he walks away.

He’s busy for a moment as you stare aimlessly in the dark, and he disappears around the corner as you hear him grunting in frustration as he tries to chip away some of the energon, before rounding the corner with a large cube the size of a house.

“What is your understanding of the Cybertronian alphabet,” He asks, taking you by surprise at the floating cube and his optics.

“None at all,” You respond. It’s hard to tell how high up you are, and deciding its not helping with your dizziness.   
“Do you have something that I might be able to burn a laser into?” He asks as he sets down the giant cube onto the earth, and turns around.   
You take a moment to judge your resourcefulness, and you decide that your cargo pants would be suffice.

Carefully moving forward, you roll the bottom of your cargo pant leg inside out and find the lining of the pocket.   
“I do, but I need some help cutting it,” You start, and Starscream does not respond for a couple of moments, before he rounds back to you and you hold onto the slick earth so you don't tumble down from your perch.

You hold out the strip of fabric from the inside of your pants. True, you could have used the cuff, but you’re trying to be inconspicuous as possible.

Something sounds like a dull  _ kerchunk _ before a red hot laser shoots out and slices through the fabric in less than a second, making you jump with shock.   
“ _ Jesus!  _ GIve me some goddamn warning next time,” You gasp, startled as Starscream had suddenly caged you against the cold rock wall to keep you from falling.

The acrid smell of burning fabric filled the air, and you cough a little as Starscream inspects it closely before you sit comfortably back on the rock. .

“I will inscribe it on this rag.” He continues like nothing has happened, “and It would do well for you to learn it tonight. Tomorrow, we will start transcribing code,” He starts.

There’s a dull throb of panic at thinking how patient he’d be at your fuckups, but realising that you’ve been through literally worse, you think you can handle it.

Starscream spends the next minute using the laser with quick swipes and flashes to write the entire cybertronian language out in a minute. There are about 20 characters with a bunch of squiggly symbols, and when he’s done he picks you up unceremoniously.

“Starscream, I’m gonna start kicking you if you seriously don’t tell me when you’re going to pick me up,” You retort, and he stops momentarily.

“Hmm,,, and I thought you were the type of person to like surprises, “ He speaks, voice deep, and you show him your best scowl as he no doubtedly smirks at you.

“I’m going to place you in my subspace so I can carry the Energon to the mouth of the cave,” Starscream speaks, and you feel something press gently to your hands to which you grab, and feel the fabric you’ve given to Starscream.

“Okay,” You reply, and you’re brought closer to Starscream as you’re placed inside his chassis.

The first thing you feel when you sit down in the small compartment is the space you’re in. You’re able to feel a wall, and the floor, so you make yourself comfortable in a corner. There’s also no light source, and you’re completely blind, you’re unable to tell the difference if you blink or not. It’s also much warmer than the outside of the cave, and you sigh at the relief , before you feel everything tilt to the side as he leans down to pick up the cube, and you feel a noise of exertion as he does so.

“Are you well inside there,” He asks, the acoustics similar to that in his cockpit, and you nod, before responding.   
“It’s fine, thank you. So… what are your plans with Silas for the moment?” You ask, voice muffled slightly and feeling the entirety of Starscream sway gently side to side as he walks.

“Silas has requested that I scavenge over a large area for the next couple of days with you as my guide for Energon. Once the next two days are over, I believe he will not have any use for you anymore,” Starscream replied.

“And… what makes you say that?”   
“Because he didn't ask me for your help after that,” He responds.

The feeling of dread replaces the nausea from the walk, and you cling to the sides of the subspace.

“You trying to scare me?” You ask, swallowing thickly.   
“No… am I scaring you?” he asks with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“No…” You lie, “but it would help if you could tell me what plan of action you have if you want me to decode the scanner and be useful for more than two days.”

There’s some silence as Starscream continues to lug the giant cube over to the entrance, and you feel a pleasant breeze inside the subspace as fresh air circulates.   
“You exude a lot of heat for something so small,” He mutters slightly.

“The scanner that has been assigned to you is designated to fail for a few key reasons. The two biggest factors are if I were to physically touch it, and if it were kept away from the MECH base for a prolonged amount of time,” Starscream responds as you hear exhaust ports in his body blast as he places the cube down, and you feel him turn back into the cave.

“So, I will need you to hold onto the scanner while I decode it, and give you instructions on how to type it out back at the Harbinger,” He speaks.

“Very romantic. Is this how you bring back all girls to your place? Promises of a hacking a Mercenary code?” You joke.

You hear a noise of contemplation, more so  _ feel  _ as you’re literally encompassed by him and you try not to faint with the blood rushing to your face.   
“No… but I can say it’s worked on one person,” he says with a satisfied smirk you  _ know  _ he’s wearing and you roll your eyes, but not without amusement.

Starscream finishes his trip back with an extra cube, and helps you exit where fresh air and twilight greet your underused eyes.

He cuts the cube with what seems to be a laser pointer that he previously used into quarters, and transforms with you in his cockpit.

You’re quiet on the way back, tracker on your wrist, as you stare out the window and reflect on the events of the day. There’s a definite party of different emotions that are trying to hog down your attention, but you can’t help but feel a little bit better and a glint of a smile on your face.   
Silas does not seem to notice anything, and you’re carted back into the cell without a word, and the hot meal that's provided before you is ignored as you slump into your mattress and close your eyes.

Your eyelids are heavy, and you’re almost on the point of unconsciousness when you hear a small voice.

_ I am here _

It’s not your voice, you had no train of thought that lead you to it. It’s more so if someone whispered it.

  
  


You smile stupidly to yourself before you succumb completely to the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of a relationship is super tricky to write, especially trying to figure out Prime! Starscream characterization.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	4. out of the frying pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Mention of vomiting 
> 
> Starts: as you take another scoop from the bowl..  
ends:You don’t know what MECH has done to you

_I am here_

…

_I am here_

…

_I am here_

You wake up in frustration, head pounding and stomach aching as you sit up slowly in bed. Holding the covers around you, you feel the cool air in the cell chill your bones as you blink awake.  
It’s morning, and there’s a stainless steel trolley with a cloche next to your bed. You take a moment to steady yourself, rubbing at your face tiredly.  
Whose voice was that? You thought you heard it before you passed out, but its incessant and grating and its interfering with the bare amount of sleep you’re getting  
.  
You take a moment to try and calm down your heart, so you decide to have a look under the cloche.  
You inch over to the side of your bed, and lift the cover up to have a peek inside.  
The wafting of gentle notes of fruit and oats hit your nose and make your stomach roll over painfully as you place the cover to the side.

Grabbing the bowl of porridge that’s been somehow perfectly drizzled with honey and sprinkled with seasonal fruits, you grab the spoon and take a bite.  
Your eyes close instantly at the delicious creamy texture exactly to your liking and swallow the warm porridge before grabbing another spoonful. You know that when you’re starving, literally any food tastes amazing, but the cooking in this facility was astronomically good.

You chew quickly and take another bite, and another, savouring the creamy texture with the fruit decorated on top, and you sit back against the wall, feeling the cool chill as you dig into your pocket to retrieve the scrap piece of fabric as you start to study it.  
You’re careful to unfold it, and it’s evident that the burnt in symbols crumble a bit as you take it out, spooning porridge into your mouth as your crying stomach is slowly satisfied.  
There are about three lines of Cybertronian. Each squiggle of a character is accompanied with another symbol next to it, either a dot or a dash or a mixture of both.

You deduce they could possibly be tones accompanying the dashes and trills that make Cybertronian… not that you’ve ever heard how it sounds. Great. Fantastic.  
You’re essentially up the creek with no canoe, but you decide you can at least get the theory down pat as much as best as you can, as you take another scoop from the bowl.

The spoon has scraped the bottom of the half full bowl of porridge when a sudden and intense feeling of nausea washes over you and you push yourself back and scramble as fast as you can to the toilet without stacking it, and painting yourself and the floor with your sick.  
Almost hitting your lip and chin against the seat as you flip it up and let all the contents of the morning expunge from your stomach with a sickening splatter into the metal latrine.  
You gasp for air as tears run down your face, holding onto the toilet bowl as your stomach clenches angrily and you throw everything back up.

Your face is flushed red, you’re weak from exertion, you fall back on the floor gasping for air on the cool concrete as tears roll down your face, and your mind starts running a marathon.

.  
You don’t know what MECH has done to you, but the fact that they’ve likely robbed the only satisfaction from life you have left - a warm meal - makes your blood boil.  
You steady your breathing as you sit up and rub your face angrily.  
If anything, it gives you the drive to kick their asses, especially SIlas’, but if you’re being honest, it’s making you more depressed than anything  
The temporary measure for pretending that you’re getting enough to eat is not something you can keep up. Sooner or later you’re going to need to eat for sustenance, you’re going to have to tell someone for help. But how can you tell the people that tried to poison and experiment on you for aid when you’re certain they’ll cut you up the moment you ask for help?

You close your eyes and wipe the sweat away from your forehead. You feel so exhausted, so fatigued, so wrong that you could only just wish that you could eat one last thing.  
You try to focus on some more of the lettering that Starscream’s given you, and you follow the instructions with your eyes as an attempt to ignore that you’ll never again be able to delight in literally any food.  
You lie down on your stomach, and you subconsciously tuck the strip under your cover as you close your eyes.

I am here.

The voice starts to gently rouse you from your sleep

It’s late afternoon when the sound of a trolley makes its way to the end of the corridor, and you’re only lucid enough to stuff the scrap of paper underneath the bed linen. Not a moment later, and there’s a sound of a key turning a heavy lock before the barred door is wheeled to the side, and opens to have a female merc wheel in food.  
“You’ve got about an hour before Starscream arrives. Eat up, and then you’ll be taken in for a shower,” She orders, and then leaves you with your food.

You watch her leave wordlessly as you drink the water provided, giving you a merciful reprieve that you can at least stomach water and go back to studying what Starscream has given you.

I am here

You stuff the shred of fabric under the bedsheets and then roll over on your back as the same merc comes back with a wheelchair to the showers and try your hardest not to drown yourself in the spray of water.

It’s honestly such a breath of fresh air every time you’re wheeled into the open hanger. It feels like a precursor to something awe inspiring, to an adventure. Like the closet before Narnia.  
You’re in another set of black cargo pants folded at the knee with a pin, a belt buckle looped around your waist,and a black long sleeved skivvy.

You go out into the sunlight, and you squint your eyes as you’re carted near the opening, as you wait. The wheelchair is kept on the breaks as the merch straps the Energon tracker on your wrist, and then you look up in the sky.

A few minutes pass as you idly watch the clouds roll by, letting thoughts about sustiance roll in your head, how you’re going to escape with Starscream. The glimmer of hope puts a tiny smile on your face as you see a cloud that if you squint a little and maybe use a bit of imagination, looks a little bit like an elephant.

Bursting through that same cloud, a tiny dot on the horizon zooms closer as you see Starscream making his way closer to your position.  
The deafening noise of a F-16 fighter jet approaching match speed towards almost bowling you over by sound alone. Starscream transforms into a complicated dance and then landing with a shuddering landing is something you think you’ll never get used to. Starscream is all fronts an assault to your senses, although you’re wondering right now if that's even a bad thing,

He kneels down to you and looks past your shoulder to the mercenary standing behind you, who seems to step back, a little intimidated.  
“(y/n),” Starscream starts with this dulcet tone and a curve of his upper lip with the knowledge that the other female merc is trying to keep herself from squirming on the spot.  
“Are you ready to go?” He asks and you take a breath, knowing that before the answer is out of your mouth, he’ll rip you from your chair and take off into the skies.

“Yes, sir,” You say simply, knowing that you’re under scrutiny from half a dozen mercs who are taking point with sniper rifles on the outskirts of the hanger, and you have an act to play.  
Starscream looks over the rest of the mercs, and to your surprise, he slips his talons around you gently before lifting you up from the wheelchair as you grab onto his fingers.

He turns around and gives you a quick wink, and that’s all the warning you’re going to get as Starscream transforms around you with a flurry of machine parts and wind. You’re suddenly sitting on the plush seat in his cockpit as he blasts into the sky and you can’t help but let out a string of undignified yelps and gasps as he accelerates into the air.

“Let’s proceed to the nearest Energon deposit,” Starscream starts, all professional and business like and you’re thankful he doesn't ask why you’re sounding like you're trying to suppress a scream.

“So,” You start, feeling your vision slowly sway as you restabilise your senses after Starscream has achieved a proper altitude.  
“What do you usually do in your spare time? Was the morning schedule booked out?” You reply, so so fucking thankful you had someone normal to talk to.  
Asin so as normal as a giant alien, but you’re not complaining.  
“I usually run diagnostics on my systems and my base.. I can detect a low energy from you… are you able to participate in today’s activities?” Starscream asks, and you panic for about a few seconds before you pretend that everything is ok.  
“I’m alright, I seem to have a bit of interrupted sleep, but I can function,” You lie. You wonder if Starscream might help you with knowing anything about Energon consumption, and what it does to a person.  
OR even about how there’s this voice in your head that says the same thing over and over again.  
Or about his past. You’re dying to know about the ideology that carried him so far away from home.  
You’re burning to ask him hundreds of questions, but you know that now is not the place to ask and you shouldn’t be sleeping on the job, knowing that Starscream will need you to focus. The last thing you need is for you to let him accidentally brush against the tracker you have strapped to your wrist.  
.  
“Hmm… Lord Starscream? I’m still thinking about Cybertronian. What’s it sound like?”  
You ask, and you hear him chuckle deeply that gives you goosebumps.  
Starscream begins to … well, talk.  
But talking in Cybertronian is more of a loose term, more so his vocal components seem to blurt out a string of incomprehensible set of tunes and melodies that has your brain scrambling to process one blip after the other, before it gives up, unable to process the following set of noises.  
If you were to take a shot of describing the language, the closest you could equate it to was if a Badly tuned Viola, Dial Up modem, and a Casiotone were in a tag team wrestling match, with an out of breath commentator blowing into a Roland Aerophone all fighting to be heard over one another.

“Jesus Christ”, you say after 10 seconds realising that you had your hands clapped over your head, absolutely breathless.

“That was… amazing. What did you say?”  
“I am Lord Starscream, Ex-Second in Command of the Decepticons,” he said, slightly despondent.

“... sounds like it was a tough decision to leave the Decepticons,” you say quietly. In an all encompassing cockpit of an F-16, Starscream picked it up.  
He let out a noise of approval that seemed to vibrate through your entire body and cheeks flush,  
“don't do that,” You reply after the strange sensation passes.  
“Do what?”  
“That… vibration thing,” You reply, wincing as you know what’s to come.  
“You mean this?” He asks, making the same noise again, except this time it resonate solely in your chest, and you let out a gasp as you massage your throat once he finishes. There’s a very real feeling of the bullet in your shoulder - not so much painful but more so of a reminder that something is there.  
“What the hell are you doing,” You ask through slightly gritted teeth, trying not to smile and failing.  
“I can resonate specific frequencies. Cybertronian uses a layered way of speech that humans are only able to pick up one third of it. One other third is ignored by your processor as you can’t physically process all the sounds. The last third relates heavily on an EMP field,” Starscream replied.  
Something in that seemed to ring a faint bell.

“... So… you communicate with factual statements but they’re devoid of emotion unless you colour it with an EMP wave,” You deduce.  
“It’s similar to how you speak. The way your voice moves up and down with infliction depending on the sentence you say can change the tone of voice. The ‘ex’ in ‘ex-Second in Command’ would sound like this,’ He continues, and you hear a prolonged screech that strikes sorrow in your heart and a shooting pain in your eardrums.  
“Ow..” You say, wincing.  
“And the Decepticons… do not prize emotion. It is considered weak,” he continues.  
“The EMP wave that we exude when we report information is suppressed, as we need to report factual evidence without having it be coloured by our own personal emotion. If we show any of it,,,”  
“You’re reprimanded,” you finish for him.  
“That’s a more lenient term, but yes.. “  
You take a moment to absorb this information.  
“I’m guessing that it wasn’t always the case?” You ask.  
There was a beat of silence that followed, and you stay quiet.

“When I first joined the Decepticons, it was a new age, a retaliation against the old ways of the Senate, and the caste system that they enforced. Everyone was affected with their cruel reign, not just the lowest castes.  
When Megatron rose up from the GLadiatorial arenas of Kaon, he sparked a new hope that the antiquated system can be abolished, and a new era can be established,” Starscream continued.

“The Senate had chosen another, Optimus Prime. He argued that a slow overhaul of the system would be best, not to tear down the entire system and build it up from scratch as Megatron had wanted. And so, Megatron rebelled, and I was his second in command,” Starscream responded.

There’s a pause as you take in all the details, mulling it over and staring at the scanner for a little bit, the destination appearing on the radar.  
“A complete overhaul of the Senate… they must have been cruel from what you’ve told me,” You decided to start.  
“You have no idea of the extent of their cruelty that they can enforce on even their most loyal and closest senators,” Starscream spoke lowly, voice peppered in bitterness.

Starscream started his descent, leagues more comfortable for you rather than the flyby that was yesterday’s aerobatics show. He lands with a flip like last time, but you’re more prepared and with a whirlwind of transforming and the sound of wind blasting at your ears, you find yourself nestled in Starscream’s claws.  
“So, what was the final straw that made you leave? If I can ask,” You start, and Starscream starts to walk into the mouth of the cave that you visited yesterday.  
He places you gently to the side against a rock, as you can see him walk over to the large energon cubes.

“I had been taking care of Megatron’s position as he had left to find a way to finally defeat the Autobots for good. However, when he returned… the change in him became more noticeable,” He spoke as he took out a small laser from his subspace and with a brilliant light started slicing through the cubes like they were made of butter, the sentence bitter, so tangible you could almost taste it.  
“He was single handedly wishing to destroy Optimus Prime, the sole reason as to why he was not granted the Matrix of Leadership, the position to overhaul and change the senate. There was no Senate, no Cybertron, nothing left. And when you’re subject to the other end of Megatron’s fits of anger, oh. Oh you know what kind of a gladiator he was, the amount of times he-” Starscream started, his voice raising up slightly with a tremor that barely held himself together before he stopped.

You swallowed thickly, watching him calm down, the sound of vents blasting and Starscream took a moment by closing his optics and then continuing to cut through the cubes.  
“I’m sorry,” You started, and he looks at you, a little sharply, ceasing his movements.  
There was something so weird about Starscream, all metal and movement stopping so suddenly that it trapezed you straight into uncanny valley. You suppose it’s something that you’ll never get used to.  
You take a small breath trying to calm your nerves. You’ll be honest that seeing Starscream borderline ready to throw a fit was slightly unnerving, but you didn’t want to leave a faux pas in trying to miscommunicate your intentions.

“I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to experience something of that magnitude. I’m sorry that you experienced so much loss in so many different ways,” You start, and Starscream’s expression is so candid you feel your heart stop in your chest. He’s staring at you, his optics boring holes in you, and he looks so so shocked. He looks like he’s felt something soft and gently for the first time.  
But then his eyebrows are up and he’s scrutinising you, and you give him an awkward smile before he’s back to stocking some of the smaller Energon cubes into his subspace.  
You’re not sure what to say when he approaches you after finishing loading his chest compartment with cubes.

“Well, it was very traumatic indeed,” He quickly concludes, the earth shuddering steps making your bones rattle in your body as he leans over and ever so gently picks you up.

And then with another whirlwind of transformation, you’re up in the air and flying.

You close your eyes as you’re rocketed up into the air trying not to feel embarrassed after that conversation, the sound of burning thrusters deafening you as you close your eyes as if you’re relaxing in a dentist's chair and keeping the scanner on your lap. You try to keep yourself together and fight the comforting embrace of unconsciousness that beckons ever so inviting.  
Take a nap! Fall asleep! You can’t hang on anymore, can you?

You feel weak, fatigued, and not sure how long you’re going to really last when Starscream finally reaches an appropriate altitude and starts to cruise towards the Harbinger.

You keep quiet, head heavy as it rolls dangerously forward, and you lean your head backwards as you lean against the pilot chair, and you close your eyes.  
You’re woken up with a flurry of activity that spring you from your sleep, as your heavy eyes open up enough to take in the surroundings of you.

A huge ship that’s been haphazardly hidden behind a large rock, smashed into the ground but still the right way up, so typically alien yet so different in all aspects, you flinch when the automatic doors open up to show a yawning of the inside.  
Your eyes adjust as Starscream walks in with you firmly in his grasp, and the crackling of electronics happen as you glance down at the wristband.

“Welcome… to the Harbinger,” Starscream starts, as he walks into what you assume is the main room.  
There's a similar door to the right that you entered the Harbinger through, and you look around. It’s a standard lab, various vials of chemicals stored in the backwalls, something that looks like a large soldering iron in the corner, various empty pods that look like they used to store something, and are giving you the worst vibes.

There’s a large table in front of you with a light green gel that covers the entire thing, and Starscream flips it over to the other side, showing a clean metal slate.  
Starscream walks over to a control panel that seems to be on the right side of the table which you’re facing. The console in front of the mammoth sized tv screen on the far wall.

“The Harbinger masks all communication and tracking from MECH communication, so you don’t have to worry about keeping your thoughts to yourself,” Starscream starts as he starts plugging in Cybertronian code into the console.

“Now… how are you faring with your Cybertronian?” Starscream starts as he turns to you and gives you a patient look.  
“”Getting there, I mean. I’m assuming that this,” You point to the dot paired up each symbol, “Is denoting a pitch and .., length in terms of the sound?”  
Starscream makes a noise of appreciation, and you try really hard not to think about how pleased he is that you picked something up, and how your cheeks flush just a smidge at the praise he’s given you and how hard your heart is beating.

“Correct. We will need to attach the Scanner into the console to be able to start to hack into it. Will you-” Starscream starts before looking at you, sitting on the countertop, and gently moves forward to grasp you in his talon and bring you closer to the console.  
“I’m going to give you legs the moment you’re free from MECH,” Starscream starts, unapologetic for his attempt to call you to him,

Waitwaitwait what?  
.  
“I uh… I suppose… I mean. You, you’re offering to give me them?” You ask, not wanting to test your luck at hearing something so fortunate.  
You’re certain that you’ve dreamed the entire thing, and that’s saying something considering the entire situation you’re currently in.  
“Can’t say I attempted surgery on a human for the first time, however, we’re not so different anatomically. I believe it can be done,” He concludes as he pulls out a few filaments in the thinnest cord that he can possibly hold, and drops it in your hand.

The end has a phone port, and you look at the scanner. A stolen phone that’s been altered to form a new scanner.  
Starscream willing and wanting to perform surgery on you, despite you knowing not much about his background is off putting to say the least. He could be a Commander, sure, but you’re not 100% on him, despite him being very amicable.

It feels like he’s hiding something.

“An Invasive surgery. You sure you can do it on someone so small? I don’t want to offend, but if you excuse my trepidation when I have someone offer something this… life changing I guess is the right word? I’m assuming there’s a catch?,” You say. You have this deep unseated feeling of fear that things can and will go pear shape the moment he tries to perform surgery, and you find the port before plugging it in.

You look at Starscream, and he’s scrutinising you with the way you didn’t outright agree to his terms, but it seems to have been on his face for a split second before he seems to proceed with his reasoning, going back to the console.  
“Put it this way. I’ll give you your legs, you can regain your mobility, not be in peril in danger, and be self sufficient if there was ever a circumstance where I am not able to aid you,” He starts, and you almost narrow your eyes at him suspiciously.  
“And for you?”  
“... Well. We’re partners aren’t we? We shook on the concept that you were wanting to gain revenge on MECH. We can’t have you doing anything like that now without a way for you to be mobilised. At the very least, consider it as a gift from a friend,” Starscream starts, turning around and giving you a nervous smile.

You blinked.

He was worming his way into your heart with his attempts at making friends?

This was too cute.

You stare open mouthed at him, and Starscream becomes flustered for a nano second, looking away momentarily before looking back at you.  
You look away for a moment and close your eyes to think.  
“I… I don’t know what to say,” You reply, truthfully., trying and failing to hide the furious blush that’s risen to your face.

There was a myriad of fillings that were all violently fighting for your attention. Trepidation, intense trepidation that Starscream was doing this for his own gains… whatever they may be. The suspicion that surrounds Starscream being linked with MECH has been completely re-introduced.  
But then there’s the part of you that thinks about how Starscream is trying for a friend so badly and how cute he is trying to make friends with a tiny human oh my god

You hear him say your name, and you realise that he has been talking for the past minute while you’ve been contemplating on what to do, and that your eyes have been open for the past minute, you blinking to try and get some semblance of vision.

Oh no.

You feel a talon on your shoulder and you sway. You feel hot, sticky and your hands clammy. You feel the exhaustion and intense whine of your stomach hit you like a tidal wave, and you fall backwards onto something that seems to be supporting you.

“I… can’t see anything. Or hear… “ You start, voice croaky trying to give Starscream some semblance of information and trying to reassure him that you’re not actually dying. Well. Maybe you are.  
You have a feeling he’ll start to panic.  
But you decide not to think about it as you slink back into the unyielding metal support that seems to be keeping your torso at a 45 degree angle.

“Wh-what are you doing!? What’s happening!,” Starscream demands an answer from you, his voice like he’s a mile away.  
You cant even reply before you fall unconscious.

You wake up on your side on the cold, unforgiving metal before you slowly stir, letting out a groan as you put yourself up on your side at a glacial pace, and then sitting up as Starscream seemingly appears out of thin air, stepping on your left.  
“Y-you’re awake! What- what happened to you!? Why did you momentarily offline? Is it-’  
“Wait,” You croak, and Starscream seemingly seems to quiet, intent on what you’re going to say.  
You rub your face before you look at him.  
“I...I’ve been unable to ingest any organic food for the past couple of days. I…” You start, feeling unable to continue, blinking to keep your bearings in front of you.

You look up to see Starscream still analyse you with an unreadable expression before he disappears to the far side side of the lab. The bright light looking down on you like an interrogation scene has you unable to see properly through the circle of light that bathes you.  
“And can you ingest Energon?” Starscream starts, fiddling with something on the other side and your stomach rolls uncomfortably.  
“I.. don’t know..” You speak gently and Starscream looks back at you before moving to something else and hunching over at the workbench.

You close your eyes and you sway momentarily, wrists hurting from supporting yourself up for so long, and you slide back, eyes closed in the blinding light before you place your arm over your eyes. You could almost just pretend that you’re on an examination table, when you feel Starscream walk towards you with a tiny cube in his hands filled with water.

You squint, as his giant form looms over you and places something beside your head, before a harsh sounding transformation noise scaled down about several times quieter before he seems to do a flip and shrink himself down to a 10 feet tall version of him.

You’re still conflicted about if he’s a trustworthy character, but you’d be lying if the fact that he just turned himself smaller wasn’t cool as hell.

“Mass conversion” He says, answering your question before it leaves you, “I can fold in a large potion of myself to reduce size. Now. Let’s see if this works,” He starts, the unease of you being a science project blinds you and before you know it, he’s beside you on the slab with you spread out like a starfish on the metal.  
He kneels next to you, and a servo and slips under your head, sliding down your shoulders and back to position you up in a sitting position.  
He holds a cube of… watery liquid that now you can see closer is tinged slightly blue.  
“Energon diluted with a ratio of water - 1:60,” He starts and gently pulls you up when you keel over slightly to the front.  
You feel the scent of petrol hit you on the nose and you immediately recoil, trying to place some distance between yourself and the watered down fuel. Starscream holds the cube in front of you, and he doesnt let you push it away entirely, the stench permeating your nose.  
“Drink. You will feel better after you ingest some fuel,” Starscream speaks, his voice somewhere above you.  
You almost laugh at the term of fuel being so on the nose it’s like being punched in the face, but you don’t have the energy to even do that.

What else are you supposed to do?

The cube which is just a little bit smaller than a standard salad bowl is pressed gently to your lips, and you let a tiny trickle of energon slip down your throat.  
The burning of what you assume petrol would taste like if you decided to drink it permeates your throat, and a myriad of sensations flood you. It’s got a slight viscosity that you know makes it more thicker than water, sort of like chicken soup, but it simultaneously fires all of your taste buds off with sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and spice and hits your starvation with a satisfying kick that makes you feel human.

You’re eager to take more, but just as you’re getting used to the taste, Starscream pulls it away from you and you wipe your face.  
You’re sitting there in a daze, and your poor stomach that’s been sitting dormant for days is only just starting to wake up and digest the fluid.  
“Energon is the lifeblood and the energy that all Cybertronians ingest. It stands to reason, that you having Energon flowing through your veins, your body would be able to acclimatize to the new energy source,” Starscream concludes, and you swallow thickly, wiping the back of your hand.  
You suddenly realise how exhausted you were trying to keep yourself together with no fuel, and you sigh heavily, rubbing your eyes.  
“Okay. That.. makes sense. And, how would you have known that I wouldn’t be able to ingest Energon?” You ask out of curiosity.  
“You would have been dissolved from the inside out,” Starscream responds casually, ignoring your comically shocked face as he stands up from your sitting form, and places the cube down as he flips off and transforms back to his normal height.  
“But having deduced that a single drop of energon being diluted 60 times was a stroke of genius, do you think not?” Starscream asks as he’s tending to a workstation somewhere to the left of you under the giant screen, your brain is still reeling that your body needs petrol out of all things to survive.  
“Am… am I going to turn into a car?” You ask, slightly pale, Starscream turning to look at you, not noticing his irritation at how you ignored his question.  
“No, you are not going to turn into an Earth based ground more OR flight mode. I’m offended that you would think such a thing about Cybertroninas and how drinking Energon out of all things would turn you into an alt mode…” He pauses looking like he’s been taken in thought.  
“But. I do wonder if it would help Cyberform you and stabilize transformation from an Organic to a Cybertronian,” He starts and starts to work on something small in front of the benchtop..  
“What!? I’m going to what now?” You ask, flaring up into a panic now that you had a morsel of energy back.  
“Calm down. It’s just a term to suggest that your body is slowly adjusting to the influx of Energon you’ve absorbed.”  
You look at your hand, and the blue veins that just sit under the opaque skin of your wrist. Were you going to be a walking abomination? Your heart (was it still your heart that resided there?) plummeted.

You think about Silas, his infuriating smirk and piercing gaze sets your heart beating faster in rage, and you trace the veins under your skin. True to form, you’re not showing adverse effects that you’re different from any other humans, and you suppose it’s because blood is blue until it’s oxygenised.

“So.. what comes with the perks of being Cyberformed?” You ask, making your way over to the Energon cube that’s been left on the side of the table you’re on, and you pick it up and drink from it.  
“Well… I suppose you’d become more durable. Your fleshy skin will not be altered, but I suppose the acceleration of healing with increase. You’ll also be able to be more sensitive of other Cybertronians EM fields, and I suppose… a detection of small frequencies in your immediate vicinity,” Starscream tapers off, walking back to the console to the right of you to check the syncing progress with the Harbinger’s computer and the Energon detected.

“What, like I can hear electronics talk or something?” You say with a laugh, but something about that statement is giving you serious deja vu.  
“Something to that effect,” Starscream responds, talons clacking on a chunky keyboard.

“Like… how complex?” You decide to ask as you place the Energon cube down and move closer to the Eneron reader.  
‘Oh.. nothing complex. More like a statement. Tracking chips are probably the easiest to detect, something along the lines of-”  
“I am here.”  
“Yes, I know you’re here, I can-”  
Starscream stops typing, his concentration broken as first his optics turn to look at you, then his head, and then the rest of his body. And if you weren’t so weirded out with the borderline jerky animatronic like movements he executed then you would have given him an awkward smile.

He moves away from the console, and comes back with a Cybetronian sized barcode scanner and you close your eyes and jerk your head away with your arms over your face in reaction to him shining a fucking laser in your eyes.  
“Watch it! Are you trying to blind me or something!?” You yell, voice slightly muffled as the warmth from the laser is retreated and Starscream places it down somewhere.  
“There’s a chip in your right shoulder,” He states matter of factly.  
“I uh… wait what? But, I was shot here with a bullet,” You start, slowly lowering your hands from your face and turning to look at him, his optics narrowed at your shoulder.

“It seems like Silas has embedded a tracking chip in your shoulder to ensure that he has tabs on you.”  
“And… wait, doesn't that mean that we’re compromised?” You ask.  
“No. The signal is too weak. With my EM field, and the Harbingers cloaking signature powerful enough to cover us from the Decepticons and Autobots, MECH doesn't stand a chance to read where you are at the moment.”  
“So… when are you kidnapping me away from Silas and giving me legs and a microchip removal?” You ask with a slight smile.  
“When we complete progress on the Energon Detector. Come now, we don’t have much time,” Starscream starts and missing your playful tone, and you pick up the tracker after looking at him for a moment, before starting to dictate the symbols with Starsrcream’s direction.

It’s hard work, time passes slowly as you crunch through data. You slowly pick up speed, your conversation with Starscream minimal as you progress, and the ability to pick up the Cybertronian alphabet increases.  
You’re surprised at the patience that Starscream seems to exude on you. You mess up on occasion, but he seems lenient enough that you’re a fast learner and you’re trying your hardest.

“We should head back soon,” Starscream starts, and you rub your eyes, your head throbbing and your energy truly sapped from you.  
“How much progress have we made?”

He vocalises his thought with a low hum that has you almost lulling to sleep, and he tabs through some lines of code on the console.  
“We have a very rough infrastructure of the program. If we only had a few hours, we could perhaps break the code faster,” Starscream concludes, and takes a step back, hot air gusting from his vents as he rubs his optics and looks over to you.

You swallow thickly.  
“So… is this goodbye?”  
“How so?” Starscream asks, looking at you confused.  
“Well, I believe you said that Silas will only need me for how long,.. Two? Three days maximum before he gets rid of me?” You ask, eyebrows furrowed as you look at him, and Starscream seems to smile a little as he sticks out his servo in a placating gesture.

“Oh at ease Lieutenant. We need the scanner for a day longer, but I believe I am able to work out something with Silas,” He responds, and gives you a wink to which you give a small smile back.  
“But… before we go, I want to thank you,” You suddenly say, taking Starscream by surprise as he turns to face you properly again.  
“What for?”  
“For… the Energon before. Without your help I wouldn't have even thought to ingest Energon out of all things since I cannot process organic matter anymore. And hunger… well, true hunger is not a pleasant experience.”  
Starscream looks at you, looking shocked again before gaining a pompous air and flashes a smirk at you.  
“Well. I’m glad somebody in this solar system thanks me for the hard work I do,” he replied nonchalantly and waves his servo away, making a smile blossoms on your face.

Despite that, you’re filled with trepidation as you both pass through a ground bridge through to the sky, Starscream transforming in the sky with you screaming your head off about a kilometer away from the MECH base as he lands with a flourish on the airfield.

You’re placed back in the wheelchair, and give Starscream a nod before you’re carted away from him, and into the facility as Starscream’s voice with Silas is gradually muted. Your heart is hammering in your chest at the fear that this is pretty much the last time you’ll see him.  
Why didn’t he ask for you to wait?

Your gut rolls slowly in the pit of your stomach as you’re led through the hallway and to your great dismay, a stretcher lies on the other side of the corridor, and the realisation that Starscream was right.

I am here.

“We’ll just be doing some check ups on you,” Starts the medic, as two more burly medics stand beside him, and you grip the chair’s arms in retaliation.  
And just when you think Starscream is going to renegade on his deal in someway, you hear a muffled explosion and a variety of firepower in the other room and the medics stills for a moment, the fluorescent lights flickering and the dust falling from the tiled ceiling.

“Okay, we should work fast-” Starts the head medic, before the swinging doors that you’ve entered through explodes outward with shrapnel, barely hanging on its hinges as a giant metal claw barrells through the corridor and grabs you and the merc who was holding your wheelchair so fast you almost get whiplash. Everything flurries before your eyes until you’re face to face with Starscream.

“I’m taking it that the conversation didn’t go as planned?” You ask him, getting an irated look on his face which seemed to bring you endless joy, and the thought is interrupted with a gasp behind you. You turn your head over your shoulder to see one of the mercs sandwiched between the chair you’re still sort of sitting on and Starscream’s grasp. Starscream looks over your shoulder before dropping the mercenary and chair from a height of a couple of feet.

He moves away and you can taste and smell smoke, the sound of rapid gunfire and shouts as Starscream grips you a little more firmly and jumps up into a hole in the hanger roof. You’re only able to quickly deduce that the room is on fire, before Starscream transforms and shoots upwards.

There’s a shower of ricochets off the outside of the ship with Starscream snarling in annoyance before he spins around and you’re horizontal again.

“Wait, what happened?!” You ask, breathing in and out as relief washes over you.  
“Silas did not wish to give me one more day. He said that you have outlived your usefulness… Are you… lubricating from your optics?” He asks, almost accusingly and you realise with a start that you are indeed, crying.  
“Yeah… I’m fine,” You start, wiping your face.  
“But, your scanner. We haven’t finished cracking the code…” You start.

“I will be able to manage. We have decoded enough to advance the Energon scanner. It would have been faster to extend the use of MECH’s scanner for our own devices.”  
“And how long have we been set back?”  
“A week if we’re dire… We should have enough Energon for the meantime with the deposits that we’ve visited.”  
“Okay… cool,” You say, reclining back into the softness of the pilot chair.  
“And Starscream?”  
“...Yes?”

There’s a beat as you smile to yourself, eyes closing.  
“Tell me more about the legs you’re wanting to give me.”

—

Silas looks calmly around the burning wreckage of his base like a Captain of a sinking ship. There are mercenaries running around desperately trying to put things out of fire, there are some attending to wounded who have been hit by the ricochet of bullets that have bounced off Starscream’s metal body.

“Sir!” Comes the voice of his Second in Command as he approaches Silas, wheezing slightly.  
“We’ll be a beacon for the US military if we stick around any longer, we’ve mobilized everyone to scatter. But, we don’t know what to do with the other projects, the battery-”  
Silass turns to look at him.  
“The battery we’ve created is deep within the earth of the complex. Even if the military raised this building to the ground, nobody would be able to find it. Get everyone out of here and adhere to standard protocol to make sure that not a trace is left behind. I’m going to make a last phone call.”  
The SIC salutes Silas and then runs off as he corrals the mercenaries to start to pull apart the giant behemoth of a robot, and Silas walks past his men running back and forth as per his orders, as he enters an old office.

He picks up the ancient rotary phone from the 80s, rings and waits, the fluorescent light flickering above him.  
“This is Veronica Jefferson, secretary to-”  
“Veronica, it’s me, Silas,”  
“Sir! I-”  
“I don’t have much time to chat. Do you remember the pilot you sent to me? the Lieutenant?”  
“Yes sir,” Came the staticky voice over the phone.  
“And were you still on good terms with her before she came this way?”  
“Yes, sir,”  
There’s a pause as Silas thinks, gears turning in his head.  
“I need you to do something for me. Take some leave. I’ll send through some coordinates for you to rendezvous with me,”  
“Sir…?”  
“Our dear Lieutenant has been made to think that we’re the enemy, and the alien scum is her friend. You think you can convince her otherwise?”  
“Of course sir. She’s my friend, I’ll do anything to help her,” Veronica responds, and Silas smiles, his scars pulling taut over his skin.  
“Good. I’ll speak to you soon,” Silas finishes, and places down the handle to the rotary phone with a satisfying click.

“You’re going to regret taking her from me, Starscream” Silas speaks, lowly in the empty room.

“In every possible way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The newest chapter - hope you enjoy
> 
> As always, let me know what you think!


	5. And now, for something (A little bit) different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow has it really been since December I last posted? Time flies when you're... fucking around  
I had to split this chapter up into two because it ended up being something like 32 k words and you all deserve better, so the second chapter should be up sometime this week 
> 
> Many thanks to nemisyss for volunteering to Beta this chapter for me making it more readable <3 tysm ily you're a star \o/

The week following your escape had been a weird transition period for you.

Starscream had taken you back to the Harbinger as promised, and had gathered supplies for you. Most of them were things that you needed, like toiletries and bedding, and you were kind of touched in the way that he’d bring them despite being a little wrong.

He’d give you six bottles of conditioner but no shampoo, a variety of clothes that were three times too big for you, and a doona with various other blankets stuffed in them that was warm enough for the cool nights in Arizona.

You slept on a gel bed, drank Energon with Starscream, and spent most of your time trying to crunch data with him. You’d keep up your hygiene by bathing in a comically large sink filled with warm water, and exercised by executing push-ups, handstands and sit ups much to the amusement of Starscream.

There was another room parallel to the main one that you were in, and you had found out that Starscream slept on the rotating metal slab that you spent most of your time in the main room. The firm gel bed that he usually recharged on was his ‘berth’ has he called it, and he showed that the other room was fitted out similarly, which now belonged to you.

Thoughts of the past week swirled around in your head as you sat on the metal slab that was the main room, watching across the large screen as a news report played out.

“-two missing bodies, one belonging to Lieutenant Chester Redfield, a Senior Officer of the Nevada Airbase, and Lieutenant (Y/N)(LN), a visitor from the Royal Australian Air Force. One of the jets has been found, crash landed with the ejector seat missing, while the other plane has been mangled,” came the voice from a female reporter on screen.

“Authorities have yet to determine the cause, as Lieutenant Redfield’s jet has seemed to be broken from the outside, but so far there has been no word from officials.

Once we have an update-”

You press a button on the console.

“-New evidence has shown that Lieutenant (L/N) may have been running from an attempted murder charge. Dates have shown that the last day of Lieutenant (L/N), a decorated pilot from Australia may have been charged for murder, with new evidence showing that she had run from a crime scene-”

“A startling new update on the Nevada Air Force Base incident, where Sargeant Bucchannan has been indicted with the murder of Sergeant Holter. This comes on the tail end of the report of Lieutenant (L/N)-”

You pause the video again and flop yourself on hard metal. Starscream was kind enough to lend you a data pad that let you control what was on the large screen as he pushed various equipment around the Harbinger like a slow moving cryptid.

“Are you certain you wish to watch such things just before your procedure?” Starscream asks, bringing you from the beginning of your spiral of depression over the ruins of your past life to reality.

“Yeah… I mean. I guess I only had time now to sort of recollect myself and have a look at what the damage was, you know?” You say, rolling away from the data pad and staring at the reporter’s face.

“Yes well, you can’t do anything about the past,” Starscream states, taking the data pad from you and placing it aside.

“What was the reason you ran away?”  
“I ran away from my assailant after I overheard a conversation regarding a helicopter… or something, and witnessing a Sargeant murdering someone in cold blood. I was shot, and the alarm was set off in the Airbase to alert everyone that I was the one to shoot the officer…” You stared at the stainless steel berth as you furrowed your eyebrows.

“I ran because I was afraid that the US would indict me for a crime I didn't commit. I was scared of people that had more power than me, and that I’d just go to jail to cover up the existence of something else,” You say, and look up to look at Starscream, who had narrowed his optics.

“It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, I’ll admit...” You say, not sure if you’re convinced yourself.  
“but… I got to meet you, so that’s a plus in itself.”

“Well.. you’ve got to do what you can to survive” Starscream responds as he closely inspects what seems to be a pair of metal pincers before turning to you confused.  
“Also… helicopter?”

“Yeah… Tearing down jets like from the outside in… oh my God. I just remembered, it turned into a giant spider, and attacked the jet that was trying to pin me down,” You reply, and Starscream turns to look from the instrument to you before approaching you.

“What is Airachnid doing…” He growls, and your mouth falls open in shock.

“You… you know her?” You start, squawking, a myriad of suppressed emotions fighting to take over you.

“Unfortunately. I had the displeasure of knowing her when I was still the Second of Command of the Decepticons on board the Nemesis. She flirts with the idea of being a Decepticon, then defects to work on her own, then crawls back to join again… no good, pit spawn of Unicron. I have no idea what she’s been doing hanging around the Air Base,” He growls, spitting her name like venom.

“Wait, how come you don’t see eye to eye?” You ask, shifting slightly as he walks closer to you with earth shuddering steps.

“We both were fighting over Megatron’s approval… but she’s rotten to the core. I’ll … be honest, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but she really takes the energon cube… eight pede freak.”

“Yeah… she said something about keeping… oh God.. Chester,” You start, clapping a hand over your mouth.

The conversation dipped into silence as your horror mounted, Starscream giving you a confused look.

“She attacked the jet that he was in… another Lieutenant was trying to shoot me down the day I escaped from the Air Base, but I’m certain the jet the two of them were in crash landed.”

Starscream had seemingly finished packing things away as you watched his brow plates furrow.  
You get the impression he’s not telling you something.

“What is it?” You ask quietly.

“It puzzles me as to what Airachnid is doing so close to the base. I do not know why she would target specifically the one that you had originated from. However… we have time. We can piece the mystery together once we put together your pedes. Now…” Starscream starts as he lands on the benchtop as he mass displaces and you lie down, watching him nervously.

“I need you to relax as I administer a sedative… the amount of time it takes for you to go under might take longer than expected. The more relaxed you are, the more effective the serum... “ He starts as he brings an IV drip where you try not to think too much about how he obtained it.

It has a blue mixture in it, tinged slightly green, and you decide not to think about it too much.

You look away, tense as you feel a sharp stab that has you wincing as Starscream administers the IV drip.

“You really do not know how to relax…,” He starts, as he backflips off again in a show of extravagance and turns larger again as you wince, the pain making you tear up.

“That… really hurt. Goddamnit, you gotta be careful with veins and shit,” You say through gritted teeth, taking a hazardous look over to where he inserted the drip.

He seems to have made the target, but you still wince until you feel something soothing wash over you. You gasp, feeling your heartbeat slowing down a fraction as the equivalent of aloe vera on a sunburn hits you.

You’re feeling comforted, a blanket weighing around you, the closeness and warmth, like a lover’s touch on your heart. You stop staring at the wall opposite with a thousand yard stare trying to figure out what it was that came over you, only to look up to see that Starscream is staring at you, before he moves off almost immediately the moment you make eye contact.

“What’s… what was that,” You croak as you can see him disinfect his servos in a small wash rack across the room.

“I was wondering when you’d be able to feel my EM field… It's a Cybertronian technique for comforting those who are sick or emotionally fraught. Otherwise, it’s the type of language used in Cybertron.. The one that the Decepticons do not allow,” He starts before finally bringing a seat over and sitting beside the slab.

You hear hydraulics hiss as the slab lowers, and Starscream is able to look down at you properly.

“You’re still nervous…” He states, looking a little annoyed while he seems to closely scrutinise you.

“Why don't you talk to me about something… so we don’t take the next millenia for the serum to take effect,” Starscream starts, a gust of warm air blows over you from his vents.

There’s silence as you feel exhaustion tug on you, and you look at Starscream. You feel childish, and scared, and part of you wants to reach your hand out and hold a talon of his.  
Just to be grounded, of course.

No other reason why.

“Anything?” You ask, and Starscream puts his chin in his servo as he waits, a silent confirmation.

HIs red optics study you intently, and a small idea forms in your head.

“Well… actually. How about something else. Can you tell me what Cybertron used to be like?” You ask, looking at him as Starscream mercifully pushes the blinding light away, and you feel coolness envelop you.

“If that’s what gets you to relax, then fine… Cybertron. Where do I begin…” He starts, and not very long, you’ve drifted off and let unconsciousness claim you.

***

You groan, light blinding you as you start to rouse from your sleep.

“You’re alive!… I mean, of course you’re alive!” You hear a floaty voice somewhere from around you as you try to open your eyes.

You’re somewhere in the midst of lucidity as you hear Starscream monologue.

“-Lost a lot of Energon, and despite the fact that MECH had done such a clean job of severing your legs, it was such a pain in the aft trying to string everything together again including your muscles and, whatever was left of the bone. Can you imagine if I had to reconstruct the knee joint? I would have killed Silas myself-”

You let out a painful groan as you see a shadow flitting to and fro from the outskirts of the blinding circular light.

“Yes yes yes I know you’re in pain, try to take it easy. I’ve lowered your dose of high grade Cybertronian sedative, which I had to liquidize for you to be able to absorb. I couldn’t have woken you up even if I tried… but I’ve put a painkiller in your IV drip.. Now. where was I,” Starscream continued.

You were catching onto the ends of his words that rippled in your consciousness like drops in water, and after several minutes, you had woken up enough to start to see things clearly and in more detail.

Starscream stood over you as he turned the spotlight away from your face, the smug look on him still present as you tried with all your might to sit up, and felt a searing pain shooting up your knees and on your right shoulder.

You let out a small gasp of pain, as Starscream ever so gently lifted you up to a sitting position, his servo gently supporting your back.

“Be careful with your right arm. I was able to remove the tracking device that Silas implanted in your shoulder. You’re free from him now.” He states, and you blink, focusing on the cloth draped over your legs.

“Th-that’s great,” You croak, eyes unable to tear themselves away from the ends of your supposed toes and the form of the rest of your legs. You flex your left big toe. The fabric underneath twitches.

Starscream notes your change of expression and follows your line of sight before looking back at you.

“Would you like to see your new pedes?” He asks, a curl of a smile on his face as you feel words fail you, so you nod.

“Just be careful when you move, it might be a bit of time before you’re used to walking,” He speaks, and you exhale, nodding, not remembering that you had been holding your breath.

Starscream gently grasps the end of the white sheet splattered with Energon and whips it off the table, showing your legs.

Your breath hitches in your throat as you look down your legs. Emotions that you’ve taken great pains at hiding and concealing start to swirl and rumble deep inside as you gaze at your legs, and try not to think that Starscream did all of this for you.

Black chrome makes up most of your legs up to your knee, stylish lines showing your grey protoform underneath, glowing purple neon lines and white accents. Just under your knees have been wrapped around in a thick gauze, hiding the barrier between your legs and metal, and all you can do is stare.

It’s not exactly like a human foot, but somehow the style is similar. It’s got rounded features to it that look appealing, and you flex your toe plates, which respond fluidly.

You try to move your foot and it seems that it’s much heavier than you remember your feet and legs ever feeling. Was this how heavy your feet used to be when you had them?

“Your legs are made of Cybertronian metal, they are attached to your nerves so they respond to touch, standard pain, temperature, but they’re much tougher so you can take a bit of a beating…” He starts, laughing a little awkwardly at the end of his sentence, and carries on a little nervously.

You’re not exactly sure where he would find Cybertronian metal used specifically as a replacement for your legs, and you decide not to pry too deeply.  
“The bio-lights and accents are for decoration, but the bio-lights are also there to tell you that your pedes are still functioning if the sensory wiring fails you… and the grey plating underneath the chrome is protoform… it’s squishy and the building blocks of Cybertronians… I will have to show you how to clean it properly to avoid infection..” He falls a little silent as he watches you, staring and letting your leg fall side to side.

“Do… do you want to stand up?” He asks, and you turn to him, biting your lip, throat clogging up as you try for the tears not to fall down your face as you nod.

You gently lean on your right hand as you roll over to your right, bringing up your left knee gently as Starscream helps you to stand. You’re a little wobbly, but the pedes seem to immediately stabilize you, and you hold onto Starscream’s talons as you’re practically standing on your own.

“Well?” he asks, nervous. Why would he be nervous? Why did this matter so much to him?

“Th-thank you,” You say, clutching onto his servos as you finally give up and let tears stain your face, dropping onto the metal slab below.

You look up and you’re overwhelmed with gratitude at a genuine heartfelt smile that Starscream has on his face plate, and you stretch out your arms for a hug, but for Starscream, he looks at you, confused, and not sure of the social context.

“Come here, let me hug you,” You choke, and Starscream stills, swaying gently like a giant oak in the wind watching you with your arms out until he slowly, incredibly slowly brings his face to your body.

As tenderly as you can, you take a shaky step forward with his servo cupped behind you as a safety measure, and you place a hand on the side of his face.

You’re up close this time and your heart is hammering inside your chest, your touch on his faceplate has your stomach doing a low roll that makes your heart speed up as you gently stroke the smooth metal of his face.

Starscream’s giant coals for eyes flicker slightly as you stroke his faceplate, and for once, he’s silent. His EM field is at bay, you can’t seem to really feel what he’s feeling, and you take a step forward, and hug his face to his right. His immediate reaction is for his entire body to jerk backwards slightly, as you place your face somewhere to the side of his eye as you feel warm metal heat you up.

“Thank you so much, Starscream,” You say, choked up, and just when you think you should move away, you feel his talon close up behind you slightly and stroke your back, hot air blowing from his vents over your body as your heart melts inside your chest as he holds you close.

You stay like that for a moment longer until he pulls away, looking awkwardly to the right and crossing his long arms over his chest.

“Anyway… well. You… should probably shower. You’ve been dead asleep for over a week…and you kind of stink” He tartly exclaims, and you turn your head away for a moment as you sit down again, deciding to ignore his last comment as you feel you’ve been kicked in the chest by a horse.

“A week? Is that how long it took you to link up the legs together?” You ask, changing the topic, and he almost flinches at you when you turned your head, not expecting you to brush over his comment.

“Well... Since conventional human anesthetics and pain killers do not have any effect on those with Energon flowing through them, I deduced that you would have needed a Cybertronian version of medication…” Starscream starts, inspecting his talons.

“Unfortunately I didn’t realise how potent it would be for you, even a small dosage, and you were out for a week. The operation itself took about two earth cycles non stop, I had to ensure that you wouldn’t bleed out. Not only that,” he said, gesturing to your leg wraps, “I had to improvise with your legs and the metal. I’ve cauterized some of the skin together, so it will be scarred, but it’s looking like it’s letting the metal co-exist, and the week in recharge has helped you recover immensely,” Starscream concluded.

“Well.. all the credit is all yours Starscream… people study for years here to be able to successfully complete complex procedures, and a limb transplant itself is a super rare and intensive operation to complete successfully. And you’ve done it within forty two hours on a different species with limited supplies.. I gotta say, I’m incredibly lucky to be in such capable servos,” You say with a smile, and that seemed to tick all the right boxes for him.

Starscream’s face split into a genuine smile, his giant jet wings fluttering with happiness as he let out a chuckle.

“Oh it was nothing, what can I say? I’m just that good … but please, do continue. Don’t stop on my behalf,” He starts, body language showing that your praise is starting to get to his head, and you’re wholly implicit in inflating his ego and you’re totally okay with that.

“Guess it’s a loss to the Decepticon cause if you had to defect...I’m glad that I met you, Starscream. Even with the crazy sequence of events that led me here,” You say with your hands in your lap and Starscream seems to give you a genuine smile.  
“So… what else can I do now that I've got these cool pedes,” You start as you turn around, walking from one end of the slab to the other.

“You’re able to jump up to a height of 6 meters… and take a fall from around twenty… do you want to give it a shot?” He asks, and you turn around to see him advancing on you. Spurred out of the moment, you leap off the edge of the slab and fall to the ground as your stomach jumps up your throat. You land like if you’ve jumped off the second step of a stairwell, and the energy doesn't seem to transfer to your knees.

“Now squat, and try to jump to that ledge… just don’t be an idiot and smash your head underneath the slab,” He speaks, the ground shaking as he walks around to watch you attempt your jump.

You take a step back and squat, which the legs you have seem to register and beep quickly in a succession of three beeps.

“Hear that? You’re now able to execute a jump… give it a try,” he starts, and with all the precision you can muster, you jump directly upwards. You miss the ledge of the slab by a meter, and you land with a thud on the ground.

Starscream is there to ensure that you don’t accidently brain yourself underneath the metal slab, but around the twelfth try you seem to nail it by slightly angling yourself forward and then sailing over to land squarely on your feet, the soreness in your bones and muscles wearing off

“Excellent work… there’s one other thing your legs can do,” He starts, and you catch your breath, looking up to him as you stand with your hands on your hips.

“Yeah? What’s that?” You ask as he turns to look at you with the same smile that’s been curled on his face the moment you complimented him.

“Your legs can auto detect a nearby surface from large falls so that you don’t land head first into an obstacle… want to test it out?” He asks, as you look at his inviting servo to crawl into his hand.

If you’ve survived the operation without him turning you into a human science project in a test tube, you feel that you’re safe in his capable servos.

“Okay, just don’t hurt meeee” You exclaim the rest of the sentence as Starscream picks you by the torso and flings you like a throwing star against the farthest wall.

Your body, which you are unable to control, pinwheels in the air as your feet suddenly find a solid wall and you crumple into a squat, and you stay like that for a fraction of a second before the inertia wears off and gravity pulls you down. You execute a perfect front flip and land on your feet frog legged, and then you land on your ass with shooting pain lancing up your right shoulder as you grit your teeth.

“Ow..” You gasp, rubbing your sore shoulder as Starscream approaches you.

“Is that it?” You ask, the ebbing pain disappearing as Starscream kneels on one knee.

“Well.. because it’s Cybertronian metal, there is an opportunity for you to transform … but that can only happen if you have a T-Cog,” He concludes, watching you as you sit up properly.

“And… wait so if I had one, I could fly?”

“You just flew across the room and landed with perfect technique against the Harbinger wall,” Starscream corrects you, his voice with an exasperated ire that a straight man in a double act could only execute.

“No, I mean, can I turn into a jet and zip around? Actually,” You start, an idea forming in your head, wondering if Starscream would take the bait.

“Even if I could, I guess I would be too small to be able to turn into a jet, it sounds pretty much impossible.” You state dolefully as you cross your arms, and Starscream rolls his optics.

“The Cybertronian metal that I’ve scavenged for your pedes was taken from a Decepticon Flier… not like it would matter considering it would need to be in your genetic make up for you to turn into a jet of some sort…” Starscream starts as he ever so gently wraps his servo around you and lifts you up to place you back on the slab.

“You would need to be completely made of Cybertronian matter to be able to do so. And for your information,” Starscream starts, executing mass reconciliation before the familiar sound of transformation begins, as a jet the size of a horse zips up from the ground with an ear piercing whine.

You whoop and holler as a mini F-16 zips around the tiny room of the Harbinger, before Starscream transforms on the slab and almost staggers as he tries to stop the inertia on himself. He lands, running off the slab like a runway and jumps off with a front flip, transforming back to his normal size.

You’re unable to wipe off the giant smile off your face to see something so cool happen before your eyes as Starscream turns around to give you a smirk.

He knows you’re enjoying yourself, and who is he to not give off a performance like a strutting peacock for its object of affection.  
“That’s so cool, I had no idea you can transform in a mass reconciliation mode,” You stretch, the smell of sweat hitting your nose.

“Anyway… what I wouldn’t do for a hot shower and a good scrub down…” You exhale, the excitement of the performance leading into exhaustion.

Despite the fact that you’ve been asleep for over a week, you wanted nothing more than to settle down into something soft and turn your mind off from the grueling task ahead of you of stopping Silas.

“I am only able to heat water through a vial and pour it into a sink for you to wash… where would one find an installation of a human wash rack your size?” Starscream asks as he brings his attention to you.

You now realise that his inexpressive look that he carries is mostly because he’s curious enough to see what you wish to tell him. Eyebrow arches and furrows are only present to tell you what he really thinks about something.

“Well… actually I was kind of thinking about my home back near Perth… I mean, I don’t know how long it’s been since I was there last. Probably two months have passed since I’ve been marked dead, and about four months from home.” You let out a sigh as you continue.

“But that’s on the other side of the world, I can’t ask for something like that, it’s a huge waste of resources. So the bath will do just fine - It’s probably better for my joints anyway,” You state with a placating smile, although you knew Epsom salt would help your muscle tension and healing of your scab encrusted wounds, and form fitting and familiar clothes would be nothing short of a luxury.

Starscream steps back and looks behind him to a circular inset in a wall to one side of the Harbinger that you’ve never really paid attention to. You’ve never been told what it does, and you’ve always thought it was some cut off entrance to a room that has long ago been smashed to pieces when the Harbinger crashed.

“There might be a way…” Starscream starts as he turns to you.

“Have I ever told you about something called a Ground Bridge before?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! And thanks again for patiently awaiting for an update <3
> 
> Let me know what you think : )


	6. Lowering your past personal life into the ground, press F to pay respects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello chickadees - since the word count was too long, I was able to split this one into two parts, this one's part two.  
I now have the most wonderful 4LOM editing my chapters - (thank you so much!) so things probably make more sense now and flow smoothly
> 
> Also things ramp up in the next chapter so ... enjoy the so called peace while it lasts adksad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: the characters in this work are fictional, any resemblance to peoples living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A blinding blue and green swirling light lights up the dusty outback of the vast desert next to a lone one-storey house, as Starscream and yourself exit the groundbridge. You can hear metal on metal and the hiss of hydraulics from your legs as the groundbridge disappears into nothing and darkness swallows up the two of you.

“There’s barely anything here,” Starscream speaks, his voice low as he stops to look up at the expanse of the Milky Way. The night sky is filled with thousands of stars sparkling like crushed diamonds in blue velvet, and Starscream is silent as you begin to jostle a nearby window to see if you can break in.

“Yeah, we lived pretty remotely. After my parents died a couple of years ago in a car accident, I decided to live here. My sister’s married to her husband so they moved out a while ago too...” you absentmindedly speak as you try to remember the trick to opening the study room window from outside.

You turn around to see what had kept him silent.

Starscream’s form is a colossal black monolith, only visible as a silhouette and glowing eyes, staring fondly at the vast expanse of space.

Your heart squeezes tightly, watching this utterly complex being awashed with homesickness and longing for a long gone world. Suddenly, all you’ve ever wanted was to hold his talon-like servo that was capable of being _ so _gentle with you, stroke the smooth curve of his face, embrace him and reassure him that he’ll be okay. 

And you’re standing there with such longing and heartache that you’re suddenly brought back to Earth when you suddenly realise that _ I have genuine feelings for Starscream. _

You didn’t think that it’d come to this, you didn't think that just because he had a voice that makes your knees weak and panties wet, that he has an unyielding strength, that he reciprocates kindness in full, that there’s something so _ cute _about the way his wings wiggle with his temperament and attractive with his drive and determination, and how he’s so interested in so many Earth things and listens to you intently and-

You stop yourself, your heart feeling like it’s going 100 miles per hour and you suppress your emotions about _ having feelings for a giant robot alien oh my god what the fuck are you doing, _ before he figures out you’ve been staring at him _ . _

You turn back to jimmying the window uselessly as you try to hide the panic flowing through you as the realisation of the situation hits you like a semi-trailer.

  
“You must be pretty far away from home,” you speak, voice reedy, trying to get your mind off the topic as you finally give up with the window you were trying to break into, and move to the front door several meters down the building.

Starscream lets out a noncommittal hum as he turns to watch you patting somewhere in the dark for a key under the doormat on the front porch, you conveniently forgetting that he can see in the dark.

  
“I'm more likely to find a bloody scorpion than the key that’s somewhere around here… ah, found it,” you start as you sit up with a ring of keys jingling in your grip. You unlock the doors and let yourself in, and to your relief there’s power on as you flick the light, and you light up the corridor.

  
“Ta daaa…” You start nervously, as Starscream mass displaces and walks in, stooping low and being careful not to hit his wings on the door frame.

“Hmm.. this is your abode?” He asks, curious as he looks at the light fitting and runs a talon on the wall, inspecting the plaster.

  
“Well, was but, yup. This is where I lived.” You laugh a little nervously.

Why are you nervous? You shouldn’t be nervous, it's just him looking at your house, and how you used to live, and where you’d store everything and how you grew up and how everything is different from what he’s used to and-

He looks over and walks in to start investigating, opening cabinet doors, touching crockery that belonged to your parents, looking at photographs, and poking glass doors. It’s actually _ very _cute how curious he is and you suppress a goofy smile from flourishing on your face.

You realised you’ve been standing in the doorway for a good minute watching him motionless and you jump when he starts leaving the hallway, casting you a confused expression. You follow him through the lounge room to the right.

“This is the lounge,” you start, and show him through. The lounge room loops left through to the dining room, left to the kitchen before going back to the hallway. To the left was the corridor back to the entrance, to the right was another entrance to the laundry and then exited to the back of the house, and then to the front was another corridor that gave access to three bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom.

You showed him around as he poked around in the kitchen quietly, muttering to himself as you walked down the corridor to the other bedrooms.

The distant, gnawing fear of Starscream setting the kitchen on fire is extinguished when you step into your parents room. It’s still untouched since the day they passed away, and you stare at the pristine bed, the dressers closed tightly, the bedside tables clear of anything. 

Your mood plummets, and you force yourself to move to your sisters room, which has now become a storage room, before you’re awashed with fresh grief.

You forget how depressing it is, living alone in a house filled with memories, bad and good, and the haunting spectre of your dead parents that is their immaculate bedroom.

No wonder you were so miserable here by yourself, and yet you couldn't bring yourself to say goodbye to everything. You turn around to walk into another room and you hear Starscream creepily humming _ Daisy Bell _. You spot his shadowed form walking towards you, backlit by the corridor light, making you jump out of shock.

“Jesus _ Christ, _Starscream,” you yelp as you jump, clutching at your chest.

Starscream approaches you like the giant he is, and looks down at you with an amused smirk on his faceplate.

“Enjoyed your tour?” You reply with an exhale, Starscream following you closely.

  
“Is this how all humans live?” He asks condescendingly, and you decide to ignore the slightly pretentious tone he has.

  
“No… this is just one part of the world. People live differently all over, but the main concepts are the same. Bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, lounge… sometimes they’re the same room. Ah, this one was my room. I never really got to furnish it out.” 

You both walk into your room, Starscream right on your heels as he stops to take everything in.

The painted walls are slightly yellowed with age. There’s a desk pushed to the window across you with frilly lace curtains drawn closed across it. To the right is your bed with a white bedspread pushed against the wall with a biplane spinning toy hanging above your head, currently motionless. 

To your immediate left, facing the window and built into the room is your wardrobe, and pushed against the wall on the left wall is your white vanity, paint peeling with a small crack in the mirror, a few old makeup samples lying there with a pair of aviator sunglasses.

“My aviators!” You exclaim, walking towards them and picking them up. The frame was a little dented, but they were still fine to wear, so you pocket them.

“My newer ones were probably thrown into a bin or something along with the rest of my stuff in Nevada,” you state grimly.

Alongside all your good clothes, your good make up… your phone… your vibrator. Goddamnit, that was your good vibrator too, and now you were stuck in the middle ages with nothing but your hand and some lube. 

You’re interrupted from your contemplation when you hear wood groan. You turn around to see Starscream sitting on your bed.

The bed continues to creak as Starscream gently bounces up and down, noticing its springiness.

“Is this what humans sleep on?” He asks, running his servos on the bedspread.

  
Your ears are in danger of sizzling right off when the bed squeaking repeatedly catches your thoughts in a horny vice grip.

  
“Yeah… humans generally sleep in beds,” You manage to respond after clearing your throat. You make your way over to your desk and open up your drawers. There are papers, stationery items, batteries, various tax documents that you’re glad you don't have to worry about anymore.

There's a lapse of silence before you look around your furnished room, Starscream’s attention solely focused on the tiny biplane on a string, curiously tapping it with a talon as his wings wiggle unconsciously.

  
”It’s kind of weird I guess, this place has been deserted for months… and everything is still in its same place,” you say with your hands on your hips. Starscream stills his movements and focuses his attention to you.

  
“You said you have a sibling?”

  
“Ah, yes. But, I suppose that the grief would be quite hard for her…so I don’t blame her if she couldn’t get to throwing all of our parents and my stuff out. It’d be quite hard.” You respond with your hands in your pockets.

“My parents died in a car accident three years ago. There’s a speeding problem on the long strips of highway, especially at night. The last time I saw them was probably … five years ago?” 

  
“And.. why that long? You hadn’t seen them for two Earth cycles before their untimely demise?” Starscream asks. His voice always has a tone of probing, a want to discover more. You chalk it up to the scientist in him.

But there’s a delicate tinge of concern in his voice that has your throat clenching up strongly, and heart beating so gently knowing that _ Starscream is concerned _that you have to cough to clear your throat again before it breaks in half.

“Well…” You start, wringing your hands as Starscream watches you intently, “I.. to be honest, my parents weren’t always the best, but I can’t say that they were horrible, they did their best! I mean, everyone has their faults, right?” Starscream doesn't say anything, but his brows furrow, and for some reason that has your heart pounding hard in your chest.

“I mean… well, you know. Maybe my father was always distant and really hard to please, and sometimes he’d favour one of his kids over the other, but they were really great, and always looked after me,” you pause, noticing that your words were starting to pick up in speed, as you pull out an old office chair from the desk and sit down on it. You take a deep breath and release it.

“Five years ago… my career took off. I was doing really great, getting pay rises, promotions, accolades in my work. My dad always wanted to be a pilot, but things never really worked out for him, so… I guess in a way he was living through me. He was super happy that I went down this career path.” You continue, your hands together, sweating, and you looking at the ground, unable to read his expression.

“I was away for work most of the time, I’d stay home for a week or two, and then fly off somewhere to one of the bases for extended stays, up to a couple of months, so I’d usually give my parents and sister a call to let them know how I was going and to keep in touch.

Then… one day, they started to get icy with me.They barely opened up to me and kept telling me ‘I know what I did’ whenever I asked them to explain why they were closing themselves off.”  
  


There’s a silence, the flickering light above making the only noise in the room as you struggle to continue.

“I don't know what I did, what happened… I tried calling them, sending them cards. I was too scared to come home. I spoke to my sister, and she said that they were disappointed in me for living so far away and constantly being on the road, and that I could get drafted and never see them again…”

  
You swallow thickly and let out a long sigh.

“I guess I still had good contact with my sister, but… It kind of hurts knowing that I never really got to mend the broken bridge… I was too scared to go confront them.”  
  


There’s silence in the room as the light lets out a buzz of protest, and then flickers off. Starscream’s gentle biolights and optics glow in the dark.

  
You chew your lip as you stare at Starscream’s pede, you hear a pretentious scoff and you look up.

“And you call them your family?” He asks, his expression a mix of disgust and anger.

  
“Well… I mean, yeah I-”

  
“Then reject the high esteem that you once held them in. Couldn’t they see that this is what _ you _ wanted to do? To work and relish in the fruit of _ your _ labour? Don’t human offspring disappear into the ether to build their own lives, and their creators want to see them _ succeed? Isn’t that what’s supposed to make them happy!” _Starscream asks, his voice almost turning shrill, standing up from the bed which seemed to groan in relief at the absence of his weight.

  
You sat with your mouth hanging open.

“But-” You continue, trying to play devil’s advocate almost on autopilot as a retort to Starscream.

_ “You, _ my dear (y/n), have potential that reaches past the rock that orbits your Earth, the stars in your Milky Way, and far into the cosmos to Cybertron. For jealousy to try and impede your progress, anyone who stands in your way _ must _be cast aside - especially those who try to k- I mean, stop you.”

His talon gently presses itself to your chest where your heart lays, and your heart jumps into your throat at the contact as you look down at it.

“There are always risk factors that one must take, whether being drafted in a war, whether being in a flight with the danger of being caught in a freak accident. Whether your _ makers _ are so self-absorbed that their helms are too far up their own exhaust pipes to realise that everything does NOT revolve around them, is also a risk.” He almost barks, and you bite your lip.

It hurts hearing it like that when you obviously had an attachment to your parents. For all their faults, they still cared about and loved you, and you had good memories tied to them. 

Not everything was always bad.

Starscream seems to notice your internal conflict, as his soothing EM field washes over you and his voice softens.

“That was their mistake. And your mistakes can be left in the past too. You can always try anew. Whoever throws you away and tells you that you’re worth nothing, that you’re a thorn in their side, that you’re an accomplice to uselessness, that you’re more trouble than you’re worth - _ must _be discarded,” Starscream trails off, and you look up to see his expression twisted in grief and looking away from you, his talon still on your chest and his optics scrunched closed.

“There’s nothing else you can do. And whatever action you took in the past… you can always try again in the next solar cycle.” He says softly in the darkness, and your knees threaten to give out despite the fact you’re still sitting down.

Something about his tone gives you the impression that he’s not only talking about you.

“But… we… we must-'' He tries to continue, a pained look on his face, and god doesn't he look gorgeous with the way that the floodlights from a 4x4 sweeps over slowly on his face, illuminating the grey in such a bucolic and angelic light-

Wait. 

_ Who the fuck is that _.

Blind panic rushes through you like hot lava and you grab at his servo.  
“Someone’s here” You harshly whisper, and Starscream blinks, his eyebrows raising off the top of his head so high you briefly wonder how they’re still attached.

You rush to your wardrobe but open it only for a rolled up inflatable mattress to fall on your head and you throw it on the ground, realising that there’s too much stuff in your wardrobe to hide.

  
“Quickly, we have to make it to the laundry,” you hiss as you grab his servo and make a rush to the hallway.

You hear the front door squeak open, quickly asserting that your escape route has been closed off as you quickly rush to the last room that you hadn’t been in yet as quietly as you can, Starscream ducking down to avoid smashing himself against the ceiling and walls, but even he isn’t able to completely avoid dinging his sensitive wings against the door frame.

  
You make it just in time into the study and close the door as you go looking through the room in the dark.

“The window’s too small for you to get through,” you whisper, looking around as you open the wardrobe in the study, and see a bunch of clothes on hangers and white plastic tubs filled with bed linen resting on the floor. Starscream looks around the room with his night vision as you hurriedly empty it as quietly as you can, stacking crates to the side.

“_ Marcie, some fucking idiot left the lights on in the hallway and lounge!” _Comes a male voice shouting through the house as you manage to stack the tubs on the side and pushing through the clothes to the side.

Ah. Marcie, your sister, and your brother-in-law, Craig, who’s shouting half the house down.

  
“But you can get through,” Starscream responds, “I can stay behind and hide.” 

  
“Are you joking!? No way, Starscream. We ride and die together, we’re partners, remember?” You say, harsh whispering to each other as you hear heavy thumps of boots walking down the hallway.

  
“ _ Well, I don’t know who the last person was in the house! The main power switch needs to be turned down every time, and I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF EVERYONE WHO VISITS!” _Came the irritated response from a female voice.

“Now get in the wardrobe, Starscream. We don’t want my sister and her husband to find us, I have no way to explain anything that’s happened to me so far,” you whisper and push him in the direction of the wardrobe. He lets you direct him.

You hear a muffled response and Starscream presses himself into the wardrobe. He sits on the floor, leaning against the wall with flattered wings and legs bent at the knee, while you step over him gently, and stand hunched over, a mass of messily hung up clothes pressing up behind you. You’re a second foot over Starscream's leg when you trip due to your heavy pedes and hit the inside of the wall of the built in robe with your fist, which has both of you staring at each other in panic, before a muffled crunch and the splintering of wood sound from the room next door.

“_What the FUCK_ _did you do now!” _Comes a screech from the hallway as you leg your other pede over Starscream’s thigh and he slips a talon under the closet door to swing the door closed.

“_ It wasn’t me! I just bumped into the bed!” _Came the response back and you look down at Starscream, you hunched over, and he shrugs at your unimpressed expression.

“You going to stand like that the entire time?” He speaks slowly, his voice box quietening his speech.

You realise that there’s not much place for you to really sit comfortably and the thought has you burning up all on your skin as you look around and laugh awkwardly with a shrug, trying to ignore that Starscream destroyed your bed and now your family members are dealing with the fallout.

You realise that the space is so small that your back is up against a stack of clothes that take a third of the wardrobe, and you and Starscream are occupying the other two thirds quite closely.

His knees are almost to his chest in a weird pretzel way and his arms are lying beside him on the floor, too long to fit anywhere else comfortably.

“It’s not comfortable for you, either,” You say, a twinge beginning in your upper back as you hear more arguing happening in your room.

“Come now… sit. It will be easier,” Starscream croons, and you close your eyes. You should be careful with how you present and express yourself, you think to yourself belatedly. Starscream does have night vision, and you nod biting your lip.

You carefully move in the dark to step over his left and right leg, avoiding stepping on his arms, and you feel his knees pressed together as you slowly slink down his thighs and sit in the valley between his chest and legs.

You’re going to die of heat stroke, or a heart palpitation, or stress, or whatever natural cause decides to present itself (and you hope quickly because there’s NO way to talk yourself out of this one). You can't help but stare at the door to your right and painfully listen to the screaming match one room over.

The muffled shouting in the other room stops abruptly and the door to the study room opens with a bang.

You gasp suddenly and you grab Starscream’s shoulders, his wings tense up considerably and his hold tightens with both servos, his knees bringing you forward as you’re pressed a little closer against him.

Your sister makes her presence known with a flick of the light and pronounced stomping around the room. Starscream’s wings relax a fraction, but the two of you are as silent and still as possible while your sister starts shifting boxes around.

You haven't talked to your sister in a couple of months, and her presence is always welcome _ especially _after not seeing her for so long, so you can’t help but be a little sullen at the fact that you’re pretty much listening to her behind a veil.

“You know I can’t actually have a proper conversation with you in the dark on a broken bed,” came the annoyed tone of your sister, and you whisper almost wordlessly to Starscream  
“That’s my sister, Marcie, and her husband, Craig.” Starscream nods in acknowledgment.   
. 

You sit a little back from him resting against his thighs, your hands fall to your lap quietly as you listen to the rest of the conversation with your head facing the door. You stay quiet as you hear her stacking plastic boxes as she moves around the study room.

“Jesus Christ… what am I going to do with the weight rack she’s left behind,” She speaks with a crack in her voice as there's a sharp creak of a desk chair.

“Well… we can take it with us… it can go for a large amount… hey it's okay, don't cry,” came the sympathetic voice of your brother-in-law as you heard your sister crying, and you close your eyes and purse your lips together as they turn down in the corners

Soft sobs turn into wailing cries from outside, squeezing your heart painfully as you bite down on your lip and try to contain your own anguish. Your sister begins to scream and sob loudly with unintelligible speaking in between as you assume that her husband tries to comfort her without avail.

You can hear soft murmurs of ‘it’s okay, don’t cry,’ muffled through the door and you cover your face, willing the anguish building up slowly like an overflowing dam to dissipate. You feel two long talons gently stroke your back gently, awkwardly before gently pulling you down to lie down on Starscream’s chassis, and the soft washing calmness of his EM field.

It’s not the first time he’s done something out of kindness, and despite your battle to keep your emotions at bay, you quietly slip your hands around his neck and put your face flat against his shoulder as you try to steady your breathing. You know it’s a bad idea to burst into tears, the last thing you need to do is start crying and alert them to where you and Starscream are hiding, so you try to regulate your breathing.

When this is over, you think you might do something, leave something on her doorstep to ease her pain, or to do something to show that you didn’t want to leave her as the last person in your family alive, all alone-

“It’s not your fault,” comes a soft voice from the other room as the wails subside into congested crying, and you and both Starscream jump a little when she screams back 

  
“It _ is _ my fault! It’s my fault she died!” Something in the pit of your stomach sours and decays, like warm milk left in the sun.

“What!?” Came the incredulous voice. “No way, she died in an accident, you remember that, she was on the other side of the world when it happened-”

  
He interrupts himself, the poor choice of wording making her cry loudly again. She says something unintelligible through her hands and saliva that bubbled through to your ears, and both you and Starscream were listening in rapt attention.

Well more so he was, you were dreading what was coming next.

“... say that again?” Craig asks slowly, calmly, and encouragingly

.

“I said,” your sister stops, hiccuping as she pauses to blow her nose a couple of times, her voice sounding constricted and ready to break, “I sent her away to Nevada.” She chokes, blowing her nose again, and trying to steady her breathing. There’s silence as your sister regains her breath, and you sit there trying to figure out what she was getting at.

“Your sister… but she chose to go to a flight academy and join the Air Force. Come on Marcie, you can’t say you convinced her to go,” Craig responds with a small laugh. “You didn’t convince her to go, she went of her own accord,’

And then in the smallest voice that you’ve ever heard her speak, squeezed out of her like she was in a vice grip.

“But I made her stay.”

Your face falls and your sadness drops away into the gaping maw of an abyss along with your gut. There are a couple of moments of silence as you try to process what the hell she is talking about.

“What?” Craig thankfully fills in, and you strain your ears trying to listen. Starscream shifts ever so gently upwards to get you into a better sitting position, and you look at him. His expression is unreadable, his eyebrows raising as he looks over to the door.

“I told you about how my dad was shit sometimes, right? How he would sometimes just choose one over the other. I was always fighting over with my sister in a silent battle with who could get his attention better,” she sobs.

_ What? _

“And when (y/n) left, when she disappeared to live her life, that’s ALL my dad could talk about!” She started spitting, fury bubbling in her blood as you heard footsteps pace across the room. 

“Always always always! About dear (y/n), about how she was _ living the dream, _ and doing _ so well _ and _ working for the country!” _Marcie spits in disgust, and then screams in frustration, throwing something across the room that splinters against the bedroom wall.

“He never gave us any attention or recognition unless it suited his needs! So...” She takes a deep breath before continuing. Your stomach crawls up from the depths of the abyss and begins clogging up your throat.

“I told my sister that they were upset with her, focusing her life over them and never contacting mum and dad. And then… I told them that she was too busy to call… but for once… my dad was so happy to see me. Until that’s all he could talk about how upset he was that he couldn’t see (y/n).”  
  


You sit there, staring at the door. If your gaze was weaponized, you’d shoot lasers through the door and through the molten core of the Earth. You’re trembling, shaking in Starscream’s grip, which has slowly transitioned from him rubbing circles on your back to gently holding onto your wrists and holding your hands while your breathing comes in short spurts.

  
  


“You know (y/n), she’d run away from her problems unless it was impossible for her to do so. I knew she wouldn’t push too hard,” Marcie continues, her voice going up a pitch before she bursts into tears again and muffles her breathing into something solid.

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been stuck in that wardrobe, listening to your anguished sister’s cries that fill you with a horrible burning anger - a front for a horrible sadness that would collapse you from the inside out if you were to address it head on.

“After my parents passed away in that accident, I reached out to my sister, and she was so happy to talk to me…she started coming back to talk to me, and spend time with me... and then I … lost her too… I deserve my loneliness,” she cries weakly, and a momentary surge of misplaced righteousness floods through you. That she was taking this personally, that you could see her _ hurt _ , before a wave of nausea washed over you thinking that _ this is the exact type of comfort she wants from acting this way, making it all her fault. _

Something about you not taking happiness in other people’s suffering also pings in the back of your head, but the thought is quickly discarded as you try to make sense of your sister’s burbled speech.

“Do you think that (y/n) would forgive me?” She asks in such a meek voice, asking for forgiveness that you do not have for her at this moment.

“I… think she’s listening. Somewhere, wherever she is…(y/n)... I’m sorry,” you hear her speak.

  
Red hot anger and anguish blind you, and before you know what you’re doing, you feel something pull you, and you’re lying on Starscream’s chassis with a muffled thud.

_ Calm down… _

You feel more than hear the command, and you recognise it’s Starscream’s EM field trying to mesh with yours, about as successfully as oil mixed with water, before both of you hear the other two fall silent.

  
“What was that?” Asks Craig, and anger and sadness flee the scene to be replaced with blind panic.

  
“I think something smells a little funky as well.. Maybe some of the clothes haven’t been washed.”

You look at Starscream at his face, shaking your head and shoulders, looking around frantically for something to cover yourself with as Starscream shakes his head, wings scraping slightly against the back of the cupboard noise. You wince, waiting for the moment that your hiding spot is to be revealed.

_ Country Roads…. Take me home… _

That’s… weird?

Wait, what was going on?

_ To the place, where I belong- _

“Did the radio just start up by itself?” Craig asks, distracted from what was in the wardrobe, and you open an eye to see Starscream’s face scrunched up with concentration as the radio warbles louder.

Was he controlling that with his EM Field?

“Come on Marcie...we can do some more packing tomorrow… I think you need a rest.” You hear Craig’s worried tone carry as Marcie takes a deep breath and exhales in the study.

“Hey, if you’re listening out there… I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was pitted against you and tore everything from you… but I guess you’re in a better place right now. You deserve to be anyway,” 

Marcie stays silent, before you hear her footsteps round out of the room, flick the lights off and close the door.

The two of you stay quiet, unmoving until the sound of a ute’s engine turns on, and drives off. You wait a couple of moments more, before you gently swing the door open, and step up and out of the wardrobe, helping Starscream out.

“We should wait a bit more before we turn the lights on in the house. This place is pretty remote, and any lights can be seen for over a kilometer,” You say, matter-of-factly but in a tone so dead that a graveyard would have more expression in it.

“I’m just going to take a shower…feel free to look around. I just.. Need a minute” You say gently, before you turn around, making your way into your room in the dark.

Starscream wordlessly watches you slink away. His arm reaches out to talk to you, but you’re already in the bathroom before you realise. 

You stick your hand into your wardrobe and pull out a change of clothes and make your way into the bathroom, where you lock the door, strip, and jump into the shower. Hot water splashes over you, and you grab some shampoo and take your time lathering up and rinsing, and taking care to clean yourself and the new protoform where your legs are, tracing the light that glows in the dark. 

You feel the scalding water strip you from the dirt, sweat and Energon that you’ve collected, and try to compose yourself. When you eventually dry yourself off and change, you flick on the light and jump at the reflection in the glass.

It’s you… but you look tired. You look like yourself, but there are dark circles under your eyes, your skin looks pale, and you look a little thinner but not entirely scrawny. You wonder if your muscles are atrophying as you brush your teeth and spray on some deodorant, wash your face and blow dry your hair.

When you exit, Starscream has already put the lights on in the corridor, and you find a couple of boxes in your room as you start pulling out the barest of necessities for yourself. You ignore the broken bed and pile half a square box with a variety of clothes you might need, and you find your old RAAF suit that you bought at an auction, but never really had a chance to use yourself.

You collect some bathroom and laundry supplies alongside some bedsheets, and a comfy pillow with a few warm blankets. You wonder where Starscream has gotten to, so you wander around the house with a few decorative blankets in hand when you spot him sitting with his legs on the couch watching cricket.

  
“I’ve been trying to analyse this sport for the past twenty minutes... and I still do not understand what enjoyment factor is derived from this,” Starscream states, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration before he turns to look at you.

You’re in a band tee with some denim jeans that mercifully accommodate your new legs, and Starscream looks you up and down.

“You look and smell … pleasant… is this what humans do in the bathroom for so long?” He asks as he spots the blankets you’re holding

.  
“Well…yes. We gotta look presentable, right? Anyway, what do you think of these blankets,” You state as you chuck some blankets on Starscream, who flinches in annoyance at your lackadaisical throw and picks them up between his servos.

“These… these are for sleeping, correct?” He asks, looking at them and feeling the soft texture.

  
“Yes… I don’t think there’s anything big enough for your actual size, but if you want we can take a few-”

  
“Yes. Absolutely, leave nothing for your sister,” He interjects as he stands up, careful to mind his wings on the hanging light as he approaches you. Your face does a funny thing with smiling and trying to hide your grief before Starscream takes you into his arms and hugs you against his chassis.

“What... why are you hugging me?” You start, your hands on Starscream as he gently pats your back.

“If I had known that taking all this time to try and help you destroy Silas was also going to help you find these uncomfortable truths, I would have killed Silas from the get-go,” Starscream states, before stepping back. You exhale, the bitterness of the situation still on your tongue.

“Yeah… that’s true. But also, I suppose I wouldn’t have spent all this time with you, and have gotten to know you if you did,” you respond with a sigh. Starscream looks to the side, looking like he had been punched in the gut.

“And… after?”

  
“After?” You say, looking up at him.

“After this is over… where are you going?” He asks you, and your face starts to burn a bright red.

  
“Well… uh. I mean…I’d like to continue the partnership thingy… and hang out with you in the Harbinger… unless you got something else planned?” You ask with an awkward smile, and Starscream looks back at you.

“I would be ...interested to see where this takes us. Now… what is it that you needed done in this house?” Starscream asks.

You load up a couple of boxes of personal belongings and stack them outside the house, where both you and Starscream take them back to the Harbinger.

You spend the rest of the afternoon back in Nevada unloading your gear and decorating the huge room you have to yourself.

You store your clothes in a crate, and some of the cleaning products are stored in another, and all in all you’re pretty sure that you’re the master of a minimalist outlook in your massive expanse of a room with your hands sitting on your hips.

  
  


And despite that, bile and anger still bubbled up over the things your sister had said while you were eavesdropping.

You bite your lip before spotting another empty wooden crate in the corner, and after checking that there’s nothing in it, you drag it to the side of the benchtop where you had been standing. You take a metal pipe from your collection and start to beat the shit out of it.

Wood splinters in every direction as rage and anger burn through you like fire on gasoline. Your sister’s ploy at winning at an unwinnable tug of war of affection between you and your father, the fact that you can't help but run from each and every problem that appears, that you’re doomed to live with the very real faults that you got yourself into.

You beat the everloving shit out of the wooden crate, splinter after splinter flickering at your face and into a mess before you take the metal pipe and jump on it, mangling it into a pretzel and throwing it as far as you possibly can.

The bent metal pipe sails through the air and lets out a deafening clang as it falls to the metal floor, and you fall onto your ass.

You take a moment to catch your breath, wiping sweat from your brow as you look at the remainder of the wooden crate.

The anger has truly dissipated as you look over it 

“Are… you alright?” Starscream asks, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.

  
“I was going to critique you on the decor at your old abode, but I don’t think this would be the appropriate time for that,” Starscream comments as you let out a sigh.

“No… but. I’ll get better,” you reply, your voice feeling constricted as you feel Starscream takes steady and slow steps to approach you.

“I mean.. There’s nothing I can do. Any hang-ups I had about my old life, anything to do with my family, my work, my relationships are all quite literally dead… but. What am I supposed to do with myself when the future is so uncertain? Where am I supposed to go?” You ask, staring morosely at the splintered powdered wood. 

“... You know… I know exactly how you feel.” Starscream speaks as he walks close enough to be in your peripheral vision.

“When all that you’ve worked for has been thrown into the wind because of one event. You don’t know where to go after that…” Starscream speaks. He looks tired, and suddenly you’re aware of how goddamn old and ancient this being is, and that he’s just admitted that he’s gone through the exact same thing as you have.

You don’t know whether to feel humbled or sorry for him considering the list of achievements far outweighs your species length of recorded history

“All those years working as a scientist, being ripped from my station in a war that has completely lost control at the behest of a megalomaniac… being constantly undermined by your coworkers…” He closes his eyes, and you look down.

You’re comforted that you’re not the only one in a situation so weird and bizarre, but the fact that neither of you can cheer yourself up has left you feeling sullen.

  
“Yeah… fuck those guys,” you reply at the emptiness of the room before you stand up and dust down your pants, and look up to see him hold a smirk on his face at your comment.

  
“Before I forget,” Starscream begins, now that the topic has shifted, “I think we will need to stock up on our reserves of Energon. The groundbridge did take a bit of our reserves, however there’s an Energon mine closeby to one of MECH’s old work stations,” Starscream starts as you shift your attention at him,

“I managed to find a log of old bases that MECH used to reside in. This one seems like the most recent, apart from the one that I managed to destroy half of, but I suppose it would be of importance to go look through there as well.”

  
“Wait, how did you find out about that?” You ask, your hands on your hips.

“It turns out there’s a line of code that seemed to hide the waypoints. I guess the coder was lazy and couldn’t be bothered changing the whole layout of the system, otherwise it’d crash,” he responded, his wings fluttering at his accomplishment, and you couldn’t help but crack a giant smile.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it before… but I suppose we were trying to translate the bulk of the coding, not going through it with what you humans call a ‘fine toothed comb’,” He continues, checking his nails.

“Well… did you want to do a fly by to lift our spirits and do some recon after we get some Energon supplies?” You say with a smile, Starscream leaning down to you and sharing the smile with his own smirk.

“Oh I do love it when you read my mind,” he says with a cocky expression.

  
  
  


***

Hydraulics hiss when the doors slide open behind Knock Out in the medbay of the Nemesis as he focuses on a project with a soldering iron. The clacking of spider legs on polished metal is soon followed by a putrid smell of rotting meat.

  
“ _ Primus, _what have the Vehicons brought in NOW that’s causing such a-” Knock Out starts, throwing his tools down in frustration as he turns around to see Airachnid looking pensive with what seems like a human in her servos.

  
“Air..Airachnid, I…what are you doing here?” He asks, a little nervously.

“Aren’t I allowed in the Medical Bay? It seems like I’m intruding on something,” she queries, rolling the human in her hand. It seems limp and slightly charred, wearing a green body suit and a pilots helmet with the visor covering its face.

“Well you’re not injured, so I do wonder about the nature of your visit,” Knock Out continues as he turns back to the task at hand and continues to solder filaments together.

“I was wondering if you knew of a formula or had one on hand for … preserving organic life forms… this one has unfortunately spoiled,” she asks, bringing it up to her face and poking the cadaver with her talon in the chest, resulting in a squishy sound. “The solution I had unfortunately went up in smoke in a skirmish when I first landed,” she concludes with bared fangs at the memory of Jack taking a lit match to her crash landed ship.

“I suppose I can find something in a database somewhere. But, if I may..” Knock Out pauses, turning around and looking at her with calculating optics.

  
“Isn’t Lord Megatron against the idea of having any sort of fleshy organic life forms on board - dead _ or _ alive? I thought you were trying to get him to _ like _you more,” Knock Out asks with a servo sitting on his hip. Airachnid looks from the dead body back up at Knock Out.

“I do believe Lord Megatron won’t mind a hobby of mine. Not when it most certainly will come in handy in the future,” Airachnid continues, giving Knock Out a predatory grin.

“Do let me know when you have the solution, I’m itching to test it out,” Airachnid responds and disappears out the medbay from whence she came.

Knock Out waits until he’s sure she’s gone and shudders.

  
“Whatever it takes for you to stay as far away from me as possible,” he says to the empty medbay as he turns back to his project.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a fun fact about aviators:  
Conventional polarized sunglasses are dangerous to wear by pilots when flying. Light is comprised of wavelengths, oscillating horizontally and vertically, and polarized glasses absorb horizontal light.  
This is excellent if you're driving on the road since it reduces glare and glare is mostly comprised of horizontal light, but not so much in the sky. If a pilot were to wear polarized glasses, the horizontal wavelengths absorbed by the glasses takes away the glare from other flying jets, which would make it difficult for them to identify, and also mess with the flying equipment and controls inside the cockpit because they already include anti glare features, making it difficult to read mid flight.
> 
> So I guess Starscream must have some mad anti glare cockpit glass or something because reader has been pretty comfortable without her shades this entire time. See Reader? Starscream really does care about you. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, as always, tell me what you think!


	7. We stick together, we can see it through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you 4LOM for making this chapter eloquent, as usual <3
> 
> And thank /you/ for reading!
> 
> I'm not endorsing anything, but I found a browser extension called Interactive Fics that you can download. It'll replace (y/n) with your name, change pronouns, and you can enter other random fields if so desired. It was cool, until I almost died when I started reading a fic wondering how Optimus Prime knew my name
> 
> As usual, let me know what you think in the comments : Db

“You… are you sure it’s a good idea to be flying through an electrical storm?” You ask, eyeing the massive, dark looming cloud in front of you as you both take off from the Harbinger and zip straight ahead to the new set of coordinates you’ve unlocked.

“Are you questioning  _ my _ flying abilities?” Starscream asks, and you twist your lips to avoid them curling into a smile at the question.

  
“Yeah I guess you’re right. What I meant was, I’m questioning your reasoning as to  _ why  _ we’re flying through an electrical storm, when a misplaced bolt of lightning could rupture your energon tank and turn us into a giant ball of flaming gas,” you respond as Starscream laughs at your comment.

“And it just goes to show  _ your  _ poor reasoning, when we can just fly  _ above _ the clouds,” he responds as he flies upward. You stay quiet as your eyes fall on the console and you eye the controls, your feet twitching gently as they rest on the pedals.

“I wonder… when you said you were flying with the MECH goons all those months ago, and shit that’s crazy that it’s been that long, but, they tried to control you, right? Like, pilot you in your jet mode. How did it feel when they were twisting your joystick?” You ask.

You receive a hum of contemplation, and you close your eyes for a bit, enjoying the gentle vibration that seemed to go throughout your whole body as you waited for his response. One of these days he was going to kill you by accident with the right pitch and frequency while thinking to himself.

“It felt… as you humans call a marionette. Or if I were to hold your arms and pedes and make them bend to my will. It’s not like I was helpless to resist it, but it certainly was annoying to experience it,” he responds, and you nod.

You close your eyes as you rest your head on the soft seat and sigh. The sun shining through the tinted cockpit is warming you considerably, making your eyelids heavy.

“You mind if I rest a bit?” You ask, and if you could see his face, you know that he’d be smirking in satisfaction.

“Of course not.” He responds, as you slink back a bit, resting your head on your shoulder.

“Thanks.” You respond, voice slightly slurred as you close your eyes.

Starscream’s calm EM field blankets you. It’s like the warm embrace of sitting around an open fire, the comfortable weight of a blanket on a rainy day.

He just feels so damn cosy, and you wonder if he knows that he makes you feel so safe, so warm, so protected. You exhale, and it’s almost like sound disappears as your eyes grow heavier. You don’t notice yourself drift off.

***

It only seems like a second later when you wake up, Starscream still flying, cruising along at a high altitude, the skies a deep blue as you avoid the storm underneath. You rub your eyes and swallow thickly as you spy the map on the screen. It’s glitching, a red marker appearing for the briefest of seconds for a moment or two everytime Starscream’s scanner pulses somewhere in the clouds, in the deep thunder rolling below you.

“You have been recharging for a while.” Starscream notes as you rub your eyes.

  
“I have? I didn't realise it would take us this long to get there.” You respond as you study the map in front of you, stifling a yawn as you realise you’ve been asleep for half an hour.

“The electrical storm below is interfering with my radar, so I’m unable to ascertain where is the best place to land.

“Damn, that’s annoying, do you know how big the cloud’s area is?”

You never get to hear the answer, as there’s a terrific collision like you’ve been hit by a train. You’re rattled in your cockpit, mind bouncing around in your head, and everything spins as there’s a horrific piercing scream of steel being ripped apart before the whole cockpit vibrates.

And Starscream  _ screams. _

You’ve heard him screech and scream in anger, in frustration, in embarrassment even, but God Almighty, everything pales in comparison to this raw siren song, and never have you heard something to this decibel.

It’s a horrific cacophony that makes your hair stand on end and the Energon running through your veins curdle. It makes you want to wail, to curl up to try to escape a noise that seems to penetrate through every pore of your being in an excruciating pain. You’re clutching at your ears in vain trying to block out the guttural roar as you scream in response, your ears burning with the assault, and you’re asking,  _ begging _ him to stop until mercy finally answers you and you cease to hear things entirely.

You feel yourself scream his name as you grab the controls, head spinning, throat raw, ears bleeding as he jerks to the right as you spiral nose down and you right the controls so you’re not spinning in a corkscrew to your doom.

“ _ Starscream _ !” You shout, blood pounding in your ears. “I can’t hear anything! What happened!” You feel yourself say the words as you also feel panic latch onto your throat, as if Starscream himself had his talons closed around it.

_ “I’ve been hit!”  _ You feel him say and you gasp, it’s almost like he’s speaking in your head. You nod, trying to gain semblance of control as you pull back on the double pronged joystick and right both of you up.

“Where?” You feel yourself ask, your ears ringing horribly of tinnitus.

_ “Near my back strut, close to my left wing.”  _ He responds as you stabilize yourself from the dip.

Visibility has plummeted completely to a new low underneath the clouds. It’s almost black as night outside, the rain pelting down on the cockpit not helping. The only light you get are thunderbolt strikes, and you realise you’re flying above a forest.

“Are you hemorrhaging?” 

_ “Yes…” _

You feel scared, you can feel Starscream’s consciousness lap around your EM field like he’s trying to hang on through the blinding and blistering pain of a deep lance, and you let go of the controls as you realise you’ve been squeezing them for dear life.

“Do you know what hit us?” You ask as Starscream tries to ascend again.

_ “No, it was too fast.” _

_ _

You take a deep breath in and exhale. 

“Right, we need to land and try and figure out what it was that hit us, and tend to your injuries. We need to get out of this cloud. Can you tell how far we are from any sort of shelter?” You ask. You eye the scanner, something flickers quickly on it and you anticipate a lightning strike.

You don’t get hit by a bolt of lightning.

You’re immediately shaken to the core as Starscream lets out another roar of pain as you’re smashed so hard and fast you feel like you’re in a pinball machine as the entire jet spins like a frisbee. It’s so loud you can barely hear anything, but you can definitely feel him scream out in agony in the cockpit, and the way his pain lances straight through you and the way the entire jet shakes.

“What the fuck was that!” You shout, the whole cockpit shaking dangerously as Starscream shudders, and you try to start pressing levers and switches, as you’re being pressed to the side of the cabin, your arms and body being helpless to the force in the cabin.

“Your engines! Starscream! Wake up!” You scream, flicking on a few switches to manually reset the jet’s engines before some miracle allows Starscream to come to and his engines fire off diagonally on a slope downwards.

It takes all the strength in your core and arms to steady and upright Starscream, your brain swirling in the cavity in your head, Energon running down your nose from the centrifugal force you’ve just been subjected to.

“Starscream.” You call, jostling the stick a little only to get a small groan in response. You wipe your face on your pilot pants, trying to calm your beating heart.

You feel hopeless, you feel scared, you feel like you’re going to die. You know from experience that you can’t hurt a foe you can’t see.

In the game of aviation, once you lose sight of your enemy in the sky, it’s over.

  
  


And suddenly, like a flip has been switched inside your brain, you gently take a more gentle control of the stick.

_ (y/n)...  _ Starscream speaks, the finality in his voice should have given you chills, made you panic, accept that it’s over, but it doesn't seem to bother you.

“Stay with me Starscream,” You say calmly. 

Warning lights and warning sirens are blaring in the cockpit, system pop ups keep appearing on the hud flickering in Cybertronian that would take you a minute or so to make sense of.You flick them away off the screen as you grip the joystick and firmly plant your feet on the pedals.

“What systems are still online,” you ask him, the vibration in your voice something you can ground yourself with as you listen for Starscream’s response.

_ Can’t see anything, I’m relying on my sensors to navigate me around in the airspace... _

You grip the handles of the joystick a bit harder.

“Do you trust me?” You ask, your eyes burning as you stare at the screen in front of you, waiting for a ping of the sensor.

There’s an awful bout of silence before Starscream responds,

_ Yes. _

The answer shouldn’t be doing messy things to your heart. It shouldn’t want to make you let out a choked cry of relief and you know if that everything really ended here and now you’d be pissed off because you wouldn’t have time to tell him how much he means to you.

But you know you’re going to have to hold your head high to a mortally wounded friend, and you bite your lip as you take in a shuddering breath and exhale, refocusing.

“Then I’m going to do some tricky maneuvers… Hopefully we can snuff whatever is out there,” you reply, wondering if you’re communicating via EM field or through your voice. Wondering if he knows how you feel about him, wondering if he knows you’re scared.

You refocus again, knowing that if Starscream is going to take any more hits, there’s a high likelihood that he’s not going to make it.

And neither are you.

The deafening roar of the outside wind and rain is muffled by the energon rushing through your veins, the pounding of your heart in your ears as you refocus, before there’s a tiny blip on screen, and you accelerate through the air.

Starscream lets out a groan as you zip upwards as fast as you can, having just met with a scrape that brushes against the belly of the jet, and you flip to the side in an upward corkscrew.

“It seems like whatever got us was on the underside of the clouds. I’ll see if we can get a better range to counter-attack, or at least avoid the bogey on the upside,” you explain, resolution and determination in your voice.

Starscream lets out a groan as you manage to avoid the strike underneath with a fast maneuver upwards, but the victory is short lived, as something clips against Starscream’s right wing. He lets out a pained screech that has your whole world spinning downwards as you clutch at the joystick.

  
You quickly realise that whatever was in the air was too fast for you to avoid, even if you did spot it, even if you had visibility. You were simply too slow.

You grit your teeth together and scrunch your face as you pull the joystick backward in an attempt to climb higher. Visibility is low, and nothing seems to be striking you above the clouds, but Starscream lets out a groan before the engines and lights power down and you start to fall backwards.

“ _ STARSCREAM _ ” You start clicking buttons and switches in order to power the engine up again through a manual override. You don’t even know if this would even work on him, and you’re a button press away to complete the process before something heavy slams on the cockpit. It’s obfuscated with a dark mass, so you might as well be staring at a void

Red eyes glimmer, framed in a metal porcelain face, a pointed headdress that seems to burn through the glass and into your chest comes into focus.

“Airachnid,” you breathe.

“Knock knock my pretty, let me come in,” she mocks with a crystal clear tone that rings in your head.

You’re hopelessly stuck in the clutch of a giant spider on a jet nosediving into the Earth, and yet you give her a sneer and flip the bird as you click the last button to reset Starscream’s jets.

“Get fucked!” You communicate through to her with the most anger you can possibly spit at her with your EM field, boiling rage condensed into an invisible wave that would have fogged up the inside of the cockpit if tangible.

“What’s happened…” Comes the confused slur of Starscream as you’re blindly spiraling down to Earth as Airachnid tries to pry herself into the cockpit, the outsides of the glass slowly cracking.

“It’s Airachnid! We’re at terminal velocity approaching Earth- I- Starscream-!’ You hear yourself scream.

You can’t help it, the overwhelming fear and end of times is approaching you, and the crack of glass intensifies as you keep your eyes stuck on Airachnid.

You look around the cockpit, trying to find something to ward her off, anything, even a shard of broken piece of glass, but there’s nothing.

With a bitter, almost calm feeling, your deathgrip on the joystick relinquishes.

“It’s been… an honour serving with you, Starscream. I wouldn’t have wanted a better partner, human or Cybertronian. Thank you,” you say gently as you sit back. You exhale, ready to accept your fate.

There’s a sudden whirl where you’re thrown backwards and spinning around so fast you just barely see that Airachnid’s red eyes have leapt from the jet.

“GET  _ OFF ME _ ,” Starscream shouts.

Something hits you, and it takes you a moment to realise that you haven’t been hit with anything tangible.

  
Your anger is nothing compared to this encompassing, pure rage emanating from every atom in Starscream's vicinity, his fury so thick in the air you find it hard to breathe. In addition to about a G of force from your fall, this crushing, oppressive anger embraces you. Overwhelmed, you try to take short, steady breaths to keep yourself conscious.

Starscream snarls, and there’s a screech as metal is scraped across the glass of the cockpit. You kind of have to admire the balls Airachnid has to be standing on a jet falling to its doom at terminal velocity while continuing to goad the dangerously angry Starscream.

For like 5 seconds of course.

You realise that Starscream has transformed mid freefall and then back to a jet again when he spirals upwards and then flips back down, the sounds of his rocket launchers being launched at her somewhere below.

Starscream is furious, and the storm has gotten worse.

“Starscream, she’s too fast,” you croak, trying to keep yourself conscious as he lets out a pained groan. 

You both fall back down like some awful rollercoaster that has gone rogue, off the rails, decided to defy gravity, and then developed a dickish sentience which has now decided to torture you for as long as it possibly can.

  
Starscream doesn't say anything as he rights his position, and tries to climb the sky, before lightning arcs.

You don’t even have any time to react as a bolt hits Starscream’s cockpit, leaving a scorch mark with a deafening bang. If you weren’t bleeding from the ears already, it would have taken them out.

You let out a scream of surprise and clutch at your heart as Starscream yells in pain and shock, hearing an explosion somewhere below you.

The lightning bolt could have hit Airachnid, it could have hit the rockets that Starscream launched, but you’re not wanting to stick around and find out the answer. There’s nothing you can do anyway 

“GO! Get the hell out of here, Starscream! Activate the Groundbridge for god’s sake! I don’t wanna… I don’t… wanna.. lose….” You try to argue, but things are getting fuzzy, and you’re losing consciousness as your body finally gives out.

Your eyes are playing Windows Media 98 visualisers as your hands slip from the control and your head rolls forward as Starscream lurches down again, body held back by the seatbelts.

So much for telling him how you feel.

***

You slowly wake up to the deafening sound of water splashing on a tin roof.

When did you start hearing again? The thought about how Cybertronians can heal mild wounds through EM fields briefly cross your mind, but it disappears as quickly as it comes. 

Your eyes are still closed, but you feel like you’re in a dream. You’re in a cosy bed but the comforting ambience of rain is leaking into the windows, and you’re drenched, and there’s no door or wall or window or bed, but the coldness and rain.

But, that wasn’t right. The warmth was there, in a large metal servo that was holding you to something equally warm.

You stir, opening your eyes as you reorient yourself, realising that Starscream is holding you gently to his chest as he half limps, half drags himself through the dark unwelcoming forest.

“Starscream,” you speak, your voice hoarse, barely audible at the thunderous roar of rain.

  
You can now hear yourself speak, though the horrible tinnitus rings in your ears as you move.

“Starscream?” 

He pauses in his movements to look down at you.

He closes his giant optics slowly at the sound of your voice, and muggy hot air blasts from his vents, some approximation of a sigh.

“You are awake, I was worried that the concussion you recieved was a far more serious injury,” he responds, and your brain swirls for a moment.

  
Well yeah duh, that’s why you’d need to go to a hospital, if you were normal. And Doctor Starscream would be in no condition to fix you miles away from the Harbinger.

“Groundbridge, Starscream, how come we can’t activate it?” You ask.

“I… had a fall after I transformed. It seems to have crushed the telecommunications remote I have for the Harbinger’s Ground Bridge. We’re currently stranded.”

The dread and awareness of the situation dawns on your muddled brain, and you clutch at the talons that hold you protectively to gingerly look at your surroundings. Starscream resumes his hobble.

  
“Starscream, you’re still bleeding,” you state numbly, noticing that the glowing energon was still trickling down some of his seams, albeit faintly, leaving translucent puddles in his wake as he continues to forge a path through the overgrowth and density of the forest.

“I will need to have emergency repairs implemented as quickly as possible,” he grunts out as he braces his arm against a tree that looks like he was going to push out of the way. 

You ascertain that Starscream has dwindled his depleted energy, and from the line of trees bent at 45 degrees lessening the more progressed through the forest, you’re not wrong.

“Where have you been walking this entire time?”

“My radar map is leading me to shelter, I’ve been trying to get us to the abandoned MECH facility… but I don’t think I can make it.” He says, resigned, and he starts to slump further against the tree, bark being scraped off by one of his arms.

You look around in the dark, and a bolt of lightning illuminates a large cavern several feet from you.

  
“Starscream. See that cave? Let’s take shelter there. How many klicks away from the MECH base are we?” you ask, wriggling from his grip slightly as he turns his head to look that way.

“Less than a half… though I do not know how heavily protected the base is,” he replies, as he stumbles his way unsteadily to the cavern and looks inside.

“Is there anything inside?”

  
“No… it’s empty. And by the looks of the interior, it hasn’t been touched in a very long time,” he he kneels down and places you to the ground shakily as he crawls into the cavern.

“Okay. I’m going to go look into the base. It’s abandoned from our intel...I think. If it isn’t, the only thing that we have going for us is the element of surprise.”

“As soon as this is over,” you continue talking to the motionless Starscream hefting the backpack you had on yourself, “we’re getting the following sorted in this order: commlinks, a bloody parachute, and a human weapon for me to use.” 

“Starscream?” You ask hesitantly when he doesn’t immediately respond.

It’s still dark, but his biolights have dimmed, and you can see the deep gash he has across his chest. You quietly inspect his wounds. They’re deep, and you don’t know how Starscream had been able to drag himself a mile through the woods with fatal looking wounds.

“Starscream?” You ask again, and he looks at you momentarily before closing his optics. Your stomach drops down into nothingness when his biolights threaten to dim completely.

“Emergency recovering status… ok.” You say to yourself, remembering the 101 on Cybertronian biology Starscream once gave you.

“Better get some supplies quick-smart,” muttering to yourself as you take a few steps, before making your way as fast as you can to the base.

Your hair is plastered to your scalp and you let out a shiver as you leap over undergrowth and shrubbery, before you approach a metal fence.

You squat, pull out some pliers and cut yourself an entrance, pushing yourself through and bending back the wire to clear more space, mud smearing on your legs and all over you. Slipping the equipment back into your backpack, you realise belatedly that you likely could have jumped over the fence, but you don’t know what's in store for you, and an injured leg won’t help if you’re encumbered with supplies.

That, and you’re not about to break your neck by slipping on some mud after clearing the jump from one side to the other.

You clear the run of the compound, overgrown scrub squelching underneath your feet as you run across a wide field of grass, hoping that you won't be struck by lightning. The pack is beating against your back, the wind and rain in your face as you gasp for air, running in the darkness towards a large warehouse.

You arrive at the shelter, taking a moment to catch your breath and wipe your face down. You wipe your feet so you won’t leave a trail for anyone who might be inside.

The deathly quiet and the lack of lights make you shiver, and you quietly run your hand on the inside of the open hangar until your eyesight slowly adjusts. The low-ringing tinnitus has resurfaced, meaning that you still have some sort of hearing. You don’t know if it’s better than being deaf, because the constant ringing is not a welcome change from silence.

You can just barely see a catwalk that leads upwards to a small office, which you take after you cross the hangar floor, holding tight onto the guardrail as you step onto the landing.

The door to the office is locked, but there’s a glass window above the door handle, so you brace yourself on the railing, cover your face, and kick it in with little effort. You kick a few more times until you create a big enough hole that you won’t accidently nick your arm, and you unlock it from the inside.

Stepping inside, walking over broken glass, you flick the switch out of habit, and as expected, the power is out. You start rummaging in the drawers to find a flashlight and some batteries, and find that you’re in luck. You set it up, flicking the light on and looking around the small office.

It’s empty from any important government looking documents, and you can see the layout of the office a bit more clearly. It’s rectangular, some iron filing cabinets to your right lining the walls, desks and chairs to your left pushed against windows with the blinds down, and to the other end of the room you see a corkboard and some crates stuck in the corner.

Investigating closer, there’s a map of the facility on the corkboard, and you run your finger over it, trying to find a supply room, which turns out it's the hangar that you’ve walked into. Apparently. You don’t know if it’s been cleared out.

This used to be a Government base, but MECH had also previously used it. So, you have a feeling that there’s more to offer in this base if you were to look through the other rooms. Right now though, the priority is for Starscream to have his wounds taken care of. You don't know if there’s Energon in the building, but you exit the room and descend from the catwalk.

A quick look through the giant hangar shows you that there are several large sheets of aluminium about as tall as you and the width of your forearm, and a soldering iron stored in a half open crate. 

  
Not good, you think, as you look it over. It’s too small for your work. You keep rummaging through crates and shelves, and find what you’re looking for, welding equipment. But there sets itself another slew of problems.

“What the fuck. How am I supposed to bring that over to him,” you curse under your breath at the size of the trolley, which is about three feet high, two feet wide.

If you can’t bring Starscream to the welding iron, you decide you need to make a house call.

You open your rucksack and stick in the pressure regulator amongst the bolt cutter, duct tape and swiss army knife you brought along. It’s a long and steady pipe which sits at the back of the welding machine, and it barely fits inside with the protective mask and the gloves, and sling it over your shoulder. You place the sheets of the 2 inch sheets of metal under your arm, which you can just hold, and then pick up the actual soldering machine under the other arm.

It seems that the rain has lessened a little, and the moon peeks from behind the clouds.

You lift up your items, and begin the heavy trek to the cavern. It’s slow, arduous, and you have to stop every so often to step over logs and keep everything dry, but you’re thankful for the workout that Starscream had decided to implement for you. All those hours of trying to keep planks and push ups and squats with the weight of his talons resting on you while you struggle to keep the weight up, are finally paying off.

45 minutes later, you stumble into the gaping maw of the cave, covered in mud, sweat and rain that had just barely been able to keep off the equipment you’re carrying until you just barely arrived at the shelter.

You cart the welder closer to him and fall down onto your knees, absolutely exhausted, but you know that this part is the most crucial for his recovery.

Setting up the welder you strip your shirt off to your tank top and wipe down his thigh and any open wounds before placing the giant sheet of metal. You slip on the protective gear and gloves, and begin to work on his leg.

Starscream doesn't wake up for the duration of the welding, but you do get yourself into trouble when heavy flecks of slag spit off and hit your flesh, burning you intensely. Regret seeps in knowing you should have looked for more protective gear, but you’re unable to go back at this moment, so you forge on.

  
You’re successful in sealing his wounds and you fall on your ass, nursing burns on your chest and arms as you take a moment to catch your breath.

Okay… so you’ve patched his wounds, but now it was time to get Starscream some sustenance, and maybe yourself a change of clothes. You slip on your dirty shirt and then stop as you approach the mouth of the cave, before turning back.

“Hey, I don’t know if you can hear this,” you say softly into Starscream’s audial receptor on the side of his head as he lies facing towards you, his optics closed, “but, I’m going to go back to the MECH base to see if they’ve got any Energon, gas, even, as a last resort. I’ll get back as soon as I can... “ You stop, gut rolling over. You look at his outline, the biolights barely working in his Decepticon insignia, and you decide to bite the bullet and walk forward.

You might not even make it back. You don’t even know if he’ll slip away while you’re gone, and you swallow thickly.

“Hang tight… okay? I’ll be back shortly,” you say, and then deciding to throw caution into the wind, you take a step forward and give Starscream a kiss just on his cheek plate. He’s warm to the touch, and you feel humming metal, like a computer box, or a hood of the car just under your lips. You pat the side of his face, and then run from your feelings, hoping that he wasn’t lucid enough to hear or feel you.

You’re far from the mouth of the cave to see Starscream’s optics flicker on weakly as if he was trying to find the source of the contact, before his addled processor senses nothing in his vicinity, and he slips into a deep recharge.

You arrive back at the MECH base with your trusty flashlight down a corridor to the store room. You’re not sure if Starscream is stable, but knowing that he can't lose any more Energon, it gives you a sliver of reassurance.

You find it ingenious that the pads of your feet have a special grip that seem to make you stable walking on virtually any surface, even if it were slippery. And the silence is pretty handy, too.

You praise him internally as you open a door to a room and close it after briefly inspecting it, going through several rooms, you find a room with extra clothing, and you grab a jacket and slip it on. It’s a mens large, but it generates warmth despite wearing soggy clothing from your romp out in the rain.

Your walk through the offices ends with you with a few guns and a first aid kit for yourself, so you steal that and stuff it in your duffle bag as you enter the main office, where you believe Silas used to stay.

Five minutes of kicking the door hinges and handle later, the door ruefully swings open, bending to your will, as you walk past the threshold. There has to be at  _ least _ something of worth in here if the door was so heavily fortified.

After looking through the cabinets, you turn to search behind his desk, finding a periwinkle blue energon cube the size of a laundry basket. It twinkles at you in the darkness, like it was sharing a secret. There’s an old PC and cathode monitor sitting on the desk, and to your luck, the computer hasn’t been bolted down. 

You make your way back through the corridors, and out into the open air with a jacket to cover the glow. You’ve been unbothered for this entire time, but the last thing you need is to draw attention if there’s anything skulking in the darkness, so you rush your way back to the cavern without hassle. 

Starscream is still out for the count when you arrive, and you realise that there’s no way to give the Energon to him without him being conscious.

“Hey, wake up.” You place your whole body behind a shove after you’ve placed the cube down, which barely makes his head move. You try a couple of more times, and you sigh.

What else could you try? You look at his body, the last thing you want to do is lose a digit, so sticking your finger in a seam would be a bad idea. His neck cables could be sensitive enough, but you’re a little wary of sticking your fingers there, too.

You move right up to his auditory sensor.

  
“Starscream, wake up!” You exclaim loudly. There’s no response, and you twist your mouth in thought.

  
“Megatron is coming, and so is Optimus Prime! They’re gonna get you!” You exclaim, shouting a little louder. Starscream is dead to the world as his exventing brushes over you.

  
You stare at him, breathe in as much air as you can, and then bellow into his auditory sensor.   
“ _ I said WAKE UP!”  _

Starscream might as well be as good as deaf, and you sigh, looking around at what else you can do. Your eyesight travels to his wings, and you tap your chin. Seekers' wings are incredibly sensitive. Maybe you could wake him up gently that way?

  
You walk to his wings, and start to stroke and pat them gently. You keep at it, for a minute or two gently starting to prod and nudge them, even going to step and lightly bounce on them, and you sigh, stepping back. 

  
Of course you’re not going to wake him up, you’re so much tinier than he is, and he’s injured.    
  


_ Injured _ .

That… might give you an idea.

You bite your lip as you look at the welding machine left in the corner of the cave, and stare at some protoform exposed in Starscream’s wing with the natural way he was lying down. You aren’t going to wait for him to wake up, so you flick on the generator attached to the welding machine, and wait for it to warm up slightly. 

You put on the mask and gloves and sigh heavily. This is such a bad idea.

You take a deep breath, and then gently brush the end of the wielding iron on the protoform. You leave it for less than a second, but the reaction is almost immediate.

Starscream jerks awake, his whole body spasming as you immediately step as far away as you can in the cave, making sure not to burn yourself in your rush to get away.

“What, what  _ was  _ that,” He asks in the darkness as he tries to find who was the one who so rudely awoke him.

  
“Starscream!” You exclaim, throwing your equipment to the side and approaching him from behind. His head twists, glaring at you, looking a little more brighter than his biolights when you first went out to the MECH Base.

“Do you  _ know _ what you just did!” He asks, his voice reedy and tired, his eyes narrowed into slits as he’s understandably pissed off that you burnt him to wake up.

“Yeah, I woke you up!” You reply, playing dumb, grabbing the jacket off the cube as you bring it to him. His mouth is a thin line, taking in air through his vents to tell you off when his optics spot the glow of the Energon cube.

He seems to have forgiven you. 

For now.

“I have Energon. Can you sit up?”

Starscream rolls onto his side, gently taking the cube from your arms as he manages to sip from the cube. It’s not completely filtered, so the raw energon half crumbles, half runs down from rivulets into his intake. It’s a bit messy to ingest it this way, so you give some room to finish and busy yourself with making sure that the generator is off along with the welding iron.   
  


It’s not long before Starscream has ingested the entire cube. His vents start to cycle louder, his biolights start glowing brighter, and he lets out a soft groan.

“How are you feeling?” You ask, having approached him with your hand on his shoulder as he takes a moment to compose himself.

“Better,” he croaks, his vocaliser kicking into life. 

  
It brings you sweet relief, and it floods you through your entire body, making your heart rise into your throat. You cough into your hand, quashing your feelings.

“You… I need to attend to my wounds,” he begins, trying to do so before you wave your hands in a panic for him to lie down.

“No need, I mean. I soldered on the wounds. It’s not the prettiest thing but, you were bleeding out,” you reply, staring at the messy patchwork.

He stares at it, and then at you, and then at the welding machine in the corner.

“You… did this?” He asks, in disbelief.

“Of course I did, I couldn’t just leave you here to die! I had to go to the MECH Base, and luckily they had some equipment in stock,” you reply, starting to recount the story, missing the way that Starscream looks at you in almost wonder that you had gone above and beyond to help him.

“Anyway, I found the cube in the main office…Seems like Silas left a few things lying around before MECH made their escape.”

  
“Were you able to get any more information?” Starscream asks, and you shake your head.

  
“I wasn’t able to find the backup generator to put the power back on, so any inbuilt consoles are pretty much worthless. There’s a computer in the office, but at this rate, I might as well take the hard drive back with me instead of figuring out how to get the power on,” You say with a sigh and rub the back of your head.

  
“Did you encounter anyone in the base?” Starscream asks, slowly lowering himself back onto the ground, his warm coal-like eyes slowly closing.

  
“No, I didn’t.”

  
“Then it might be worth getting the computer. We can work on it once we return back to the Harbinger.”

  
“That’s true… you okay to sit here while I go back?’ You ask.

You get a small vocal noise of agreement from Starscream, and you place your jacket back on yourself and take your almost empty rucksack.

“Okay, I’ll be back soon,” You say.

You turn around and leave, back into the pouring rain. 

  
  


—-

The night has officially rolled in, and the pitch darkness makes it difficult to ascertain where everything is without any light. Fortunately, your trusty flashlight guides you back to Silas’ office. After successfully pulling out the computer and cablings from its wall socket, you inspect the previously ignored safe.

You stare at it, running through a few ideas of what you could do if you had the right tools, but you know that an industrial saw would just spray you with sparks, and you didn’t have the expertise or the tools needed to actually crack the safe.

You could drag it all the way back to Starscream, but you’re not enticed by the idea of carrying a heavy safe all the way back through shrubbery, thicket, and forest, only to end up disappointed with a lack of intel.

If only you had a powerful laser, something so delicate but precise that would slice through metal like a hot knife through butter. You can almost imagine how easy it would be to kick down the top of the safe to glean what was inside, like cracking open an oyster.

You’re so wrapped up in this thought of opening the safe in front of you, when you feel your legs run hot, and you feel like you’ve shrunk half a foot. You look down to see your sleek onyx legs transformed to two seperate blasters, making you look like a double peg legged Cybertronian pirate. The cannons that are completely stabilised on the floor are shimmering with heat as your eyebrows shoot through the roof. The concrete is starting to smoke, and you stumble backwards in shock, ripping you completely from your reverie as you fall off balance and onto your backside, the light wildly cascading and flashing on everything in sight..

Your legs transform back with fluid motions and a similar sound to Starscream, when he transforms, when you tentatively touch your knee. You recoil your fingertip, it’s hotter than usual, and you take a moment to inspect your legs before slowly standing up.

You swallow thickly as your heart pounds in your chest. Did Starscream know about this when he was aiding you by completing your surgery? What did he say again about transformation? You think back when you were testing out your footsteps for the first time after the operation.

_ “Ow..” You gasp, rubbing your sore shoulder as Starscream approaches you. _

_ “Is that it?” You ask, the ebbing pain disappearing as Starscream kneels on one knee. _

_ “Well.. because it’s Cybertronian metal, there is an opportunity for you to transform … but that can only happen if you have a T-Cog,” He concludes, watching you as you sit up properly. _

You scratch your chin. You suppose that Starscream wouldn’t have known that this was a side effect, and neither had you. 

You’re a little nervous. What would he say when he finds out that you can partially transform your legs?

Would he call you disgusting? 

Would he try to tear you down completely and build you up again as a Cybertronian, out of curiosity? 

Would he try to harvest your T-Cog? 

You think about that last part a little more and shake your head… nah. In all likelihood, he’d probably try to train you so he can hold you like a tiny pistol.

You smirk at the thought of Starscream trying to convince you to do so, and you’re not even halfway through with the thought when the sudden sounds of heavy footsteps and a bang explodes through the tiny room. 

The door flies open and you’re automatically and already pointing your SIG Sauer dead centre as you throw yourself to the right in a roll and prop yourself up with a knee to the floor. The light from your flashlight is thrown onto the stranger, and likewise the stranger has their light pointed at you.

The table in the middle of the room separates the stranger that could attempt to rush through and across the room when your brain catches up with your eyes, and you realise that you’ve got your weapon trained on Veronica.

Your heart stops dead for a second in your chest as you feel your arms and head go weak as your jaw drops slack. There’s a buzzing panicking worry that you have to be careful, because you’re one false misstep, one second too slow and your brain is painted on the corner of the office like a macabre feature wall.

You withhold the panic and the urge, and hours of drills calm the tempest inside your mind and heart when your dead-eyed, thousand-yard stare catches Veronica. She has her gun pointed at you, and her chest is rising and falling rapidly as she scrutinises you intensely, her eyes blown wide open in shock despite the glare of your light.

“(Y/N?)” She asks, her voice quiet.

“Veronica,” you say, quietly as you slowly stand up, the gun pointed at her.

Veronica looks gorgeous as ever, concern painted on her delicate features, her hair pinned back in a low bun, and her clothes a MECH uniform.

Your blood freezes and your gut goes through the earth. 

It takes all of your strength to keep yourself together as you take in a rattling breath, trying not to let the emotion take over you as you grip the pistol angrily. You lower it, and she mirrors your action. You place the gun to the floor and she does the same, mirroring you with an open palm to show that you don’t have anything concealed.

Her face breaks into a wobbly smile as she tries to run around the table in the middle of the room and almost throws herself on you, looking so happy to see you, her eyes shining, her smile wide-

And then you throw your whole body into a punch and sock her in the face.

Veronica yelps in pain as the punch redirects her momentum, whipping her around to the floor. She crashes hard to the ground, nursing her cheek as she lets out a string of wimpers, picking herself up off the floor. 

You are tempted to pick your gun up off the floor, but her gun is only a few feet to her right, so you hold onto the impulse as Veronica turns around to look at you, her cheek an ugly red.

“What!? What was that for!?” She asks with a broken voice, looking at you despairingly as you continue to stare at her with cold eyes.

“Veronica. When you told me that I’d be indicted on false criminal charges, I believed in your plan to go to the bunker on the outskirts of that abandoned base. What I should have asked, was what the  _ FUCK _ you had planned for me there,” you reply, towering over her as she slowly stands up, hissing as she slowly massages her cheek.

“I get there, my legs are  _ amputated  _ by Silas so I don’t run away, and I’m subjected to… to  _ tests _ , ” you pause, throat constricting at the horrific image burned into your mind, taking in a heaving breath,

“like a fucking science experiment!” You hiss, Veronica’s face in full blown shock as you look at the table to calm yourself so you won’t punch her in the face again.

“And now! Now I find out that you’re working with MECH! What the  _ actual fuck is going on.” _

You’re met with shocked silence from Veronica, her bottom jaw trembling slightly as her brows knit together, parsing through the information you’ve given her.

  
“I… (y/n)...” She says gently, “I’m so sorry … I heard you lost your legs in the crash,” she continues timidly, staring at you.

You feel a pang of pity for her, and your brain sluggishly goes back to think how you lost your legs. But… you made your way from the wreckage, right? How did you escape the jet… were your legs truly beyond repair? 

“Silas didn’t have anything to do with it,” She speaks, her voice velvety smooth.

“I woke up in a bed with him mocking me that my legs were gone, so that I couldn’t escape. I doubt that my legs were broken beyond repair from the crash,” you reply, gaze steady. She shakes her head in response, but doesnt say anything. You remember that you woke up in bed, but the memory of your journey from your jet was hazy… how did you get to the base? Did you crash? Did you really lose your legs?

“I was taken prisoner by MECH, Veronica. You sent me to my death for experimentation,” you say, taking a step forward.

“I sent you there, because you  _ were _ going to be indicted on false claims and charges. There were three other people who were charged over similar stunts. They were just swept under the rug so quickly, jailed… I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you,” Veronica replies, voice wobbling as she takes a step back, her eyes trained somewhere on the table as she furrows her brow and bites her lip.

“Sergeant Buchannan passed away two weeks ago due to complications related to a stroke. Only now the lid’s been blown on all the cover-ups, and the Government is struggling to rectify the situation. There are all these court cases and everything on a Federal Level, and the General of the Air Force is being indicted over the cover-ups, but they’re chalking most of it up to the instability of the Sergeant so the knowledge of the Cybertronians is left untouched,” she continues, looking up to find comfort in your expression, but receiving nothing but a cold, thousand-yard stare. You look like you’ve run out of patience and are ready to break her arm.

“I sent you to the base because I wanted to protect you. Because the United States Government and Air Force are corrupt, and… Starscream,” she trails off, and you catch yourself. You’re almost being lulled in a false sense of security. 

“Protecting me in a cell? From Starscream?”

“Yes!” She latches onto your question like a lifeline. “You don’t understand. When Starscream, who’s running this entire operation, found out that there was another human, a disposable human not working with MECH that could be used for the Energon Battery program, he could almost sense your compatibility with him, for his project,” she says, looking optimistic that you’ll believe her.

You stare at her, blinking, and you exhale.

“Right, Starscream orchestrated this entire thing…for a battery?” You say, in disbelief. Although, if you didn’t know any better you would say it could be possible. “What battery?”

  
“It’s… “ She starts, chewing on the inside of her lip. 

_ Why so anxious to disclose information, Veronica? We used to be such good friends… _

Why did she stop? 

You realise that she might be stalling for cover as your breath steadies and your EM field laps on something 

_ I am here. _

You blink, realising what the frequency is, originating from Veronica’s belt. The memory takes you back where you were sitting in your wardrobe in your old house, watching Starscream’s face contort as he tried to control the radio.

  
That felt so long ago...

Maybe you could short the chip if you applied enough energy?

“So Silas is working for Starscream…? What does this battery do, Veronica,” you ask her. She looks up at you, still not sure how to respond, but the relief that you hadn’t run away from her yet.

  
“Starscream… yes. He promised us, he promised Silas amazing Cybertronian technology if we could help him design a method to help him find Energon. We’d have as much as we want.”

You take a deep breath, and focus on the background buzzing of the frequency that Veronica’s belt is giving off.

“The battery… was just another way to make more potent Energon. Silas was trying to dissuade Starscream from making the battery… the components to it were quite... difficult to obtain,“ she pauses, looking away.

“And you’re saying that Starscream’s behind everything? What about Airachnid?” You ask, your focus increasing.

“Airachnid was, well, used to be a work partner of Starscream’s, both used to work for the Cybertronian Decepticon Faction, until both of them had been displeased with their commander, Megatron,” she explains. Your EM field lashes and whips around, assaulting the little chip on her belt as she gazes at you wearily.

“Are you okay?” She asks gently.

  
“Yeah,” you say, exhaling and inhaling loudly, trying to exert force.

  
“I… I mean, I guess this is the first time I've heard all about it,” You say, eyes resting somewhere on her shoulder as you try to look interested in her story. The Airachnid story checks out, to some degree, but it was all so very vague.

“How did you get all this information?” You ask, and Veronica continues, happy to keep talking and distracted from the small sliver of smoke escaping from her belt.

“Silas briefed us all. He called me specifically in to track you down. Starscream is notorious for reneging on his superiors, on his friends. I wanted to warn you, to save you from him if he were to try anything on you.”

  
“Then, what was my purpose with Starscream if he kidnapped me for this… Energon Battery? Why me specifically?” 

“I… I do not…. What’s that smell?” She asks, and turns to her belt, inspecting the walkie talkie, recoiling her hand at the touch.

“What… what happened! Did… “ She stops, looking at you, momentarily.

  
You stare back, unmoving.

“(Y/n), Starscream’s been lying to you. Come back to me, to MECH. I can promise you safety,” she says, imploring you, stretching out her hand.

You stare at it, and then at her. If you weren’t so torn apart inside, you would have burst out laughing at the peace offering.

Back to MECH, where Silas no doubt has been pulling the strings behind the entire operation, to the Medics who were preparing you for surgery just in time for Starscream to mercifully save you. Back to the cell where you belonged like a prisoner, with empty beds, with no Starscream to stop you from going insane.

Do you really want to go back to this so-called civilization if this is how you’re going to be treated for the rest of your life?

“I… wanted to ask one more question,” you ask again.

Truthfully, you’re confused, and there’s more you want to ask. But something is not right, and while you know deep down inside she’s acting on good faith, there’s something afoot.   
  


“What makes you think I’ll be treated better just because you convinced me to go back,” you continue, and her confusion is evident on her face.

Her hand flies to the back of her communicator as it sizzles and pops, sparking and emitting caustic fumes and smoke.

You’ve been waiting long enough.    
  
You roll to the side and pick up the gun, with her reaction to do the same, only for you to beat her to the punch and shoot beside her hand.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” you say slowly, as she eyes you with sadness in her eyes. You feel guilty as sin.

“Starscream has brainwashed you, (y/n), please don’t make the mistake of coming back to him, he wants to use you for his own gain, please!” She cries, her voice almost breaking at the last note, and your throat goes dry.

“I’ll…. get back to you on that,” you say, grabbing the console off the desk, giving her ample time to grab the gun.

  
“(Y/n)!” She shouts, as you bolt out the door.

You’re wondering if you should get Starscream to get you night vision goggles or optics in the sudden darkness, when you see figures and flailing flashlights at the end of the left corridor. You bolt with the computer in your hands, jacket flapping against you with your rucksack.

You make a hard turn right, barely managing to right yourself up without smashing into the wall to your left or falling onto the floor. Your legs are sturdy, but they’re so much heavier than your last pair. You make a mental note to ask Starscream for an e-break as you round another corner and make it to the hangar.

The lights are off, but a few guards are milling on the catwalk, though they seem to have started the generator, because before long the emergency lights flood on, along with the rest of the warehouse lights that almost blind you.

“Look! There on the ground!” Comes a shout from somewhere on the catwalk, and you power through, looking like some petty thief that broke into an electronic store and running like the devil is chasing you.

Anxiety and adrenaline burst through you as you charge, making a beeline for the garage door that’s slowly lowering past your height, and you manage to throw yourself Indiana Jones-style under the roller shutter door.

You’re far more inelegant as you throw yourself head first under the door, clipping your head enough to bang it heavily, and for you to taste iron and toss the computer in a puddle of mud. You swear loudly as you pick yourself up, clutching your bleeding head, panting and gaumed in dirt, as you pick up the piece of hardware and sprint for your life.

You run in the darkness, heartbeat bursting a heavy staccato in your head and chest, running directly for the hole you previously made in the fence. The floodlights on the compound explode with blinding light along with the ones posted along the fence. There are shouts as you’re spotted from the hangar, a few voices coming somewhere from your far right as you reach the fence in record time.

Panic and adrenaline course through you as you exhale and take a few steps back, before bracing yourself in a kneeling position with one knee down.

You look over to your right to see a merc crossing a hundred meters with frightening speed as your legs beep three times in succession. You almost scream as you’re launched in the air and clear the three-meter fence topped with barbed wire, and you manage to land with a wet squelch that momentarily makes your heart stop in fear of having broken your ankle.

When the initial fear passes and your brain reassesses the situation, you realise that your foot is jammed in a decayed log, half decomposed and full of thick mud. You’re still dizzy from the bang to your head, distantly feeling a trickle dripping down your forehead as your leg is unable to get away from the soft undergrowth webbed through the fallen tree.

A horrible sharp stab of panic floods through you as you start to hyperventilate and jerk your leg away from the log, watching as the mercenary begins to push through the metal wire of the gate. He has his gun pointed at you, and you look down at your leg, still knee deep.

“Don’t shoot!” Comes the distant voice of another mercenary, before you jerk, pull and twist your leg as hard as you can to stay free while wobbling on your other leg.    
  
If you could only just free yourself, burst your entrapment into smithereens-

Wait a second.

You immediately focus on blasting the biggest hole in the ground, and your leg transforms away as smooth as silk. The transformation sequence frees your leg from the growth by retracting your foot and making it into a blaster cannon, but before you can realise that you can just escape, the whole forest floor explodes underneath you in a smoky and hazy inferno of wet debris and hot mud.

“THEY’RE GETTING AWAY!” 

The shout is too close for comfort, and you run like mad.

You barely have time to think before there’s a bang and a distant shout of ‘Ceasefire!  _ Ceasefire _ !’ before another shot goes off. The first one misses you by some miracle, but the second time you’re not lucky. 

It hits you somewhere on your calve, getting wedged in between the plates that barely show your protoform and you scramble away. It feels like someone’s holding a hot metal nugget to your leg as you grit your teeth and run. Operation Cybertronian Leg can be done later, the time for escape is  _ now. _

The wind and rain has picked up as you scramble in the dark. The darkness fills every nook and crevice of the forest. The rain is pelting on your skin and soaked jacket as your fingernails scrabble against the bark of trees and run throughout the overbush as you alternate the computer between your hands.

There are flickering lights that are approaching your destination, fanning out and flicking upwards and downwards, and you try to catch your breath.

You close your eyes as you slowly start to walk in the opposite direction as you stumble through the darkness.

You don’t know how long you amble through the bush, how far you walk as you try to make a wide curve that the mercs have forced you to take back to the cave. But you’re in luck when you’re able to read Starscream’s EM Field getting stronger as you keep walking away from the other mercenaries.

“Starscream!” You yell, running into the cavern, when the unnatural stillness of the cave and the breathing of something else makes your hair stand on end. 

It stinks of musk, of an animal that you’re not familiar with before fear grips you. You stop dead in your tracks, the only sound is your beating heart against your ribcage. The cave has swallowed all of the light, and there’s nothing you can detect except something else other than Starscream deep in the bowels of the cave.

“Starscream?” You ask, throat scratchy, before an animalistic growl comes from inside, and you hightail it out of the cave as a roar from a bear makes its way heard.

“What the fuck! When did that get in there!?” You exclaim, voice shrill as you try to find a tree worth climbing. But it’s dark, the slimy and wet undergrowth is making you trip up and the trees in the small clearing are too far to jump to, and you can hear thunderous paws behind you. You panic and drop to the ground pretending to be dead in a last hopeless ditch at evading being mauled by a bear, dropping the computer to the side.

You close your eyes, cowering on the floor and feeling the wet and hot breath of the three-hundred-pound beast, sniffing you and trying to figure out if you’re dead.

Your heartbeat is through the roof and you’re thankful that you don’t have a bladder to be emptied, because you would have done it about now, waiting for your death. Suddenly, the bear is gone and you hear its roar growing distant at a speed physically impossible for an animal on foot.

You open your eyes and look around, trying to calm down your racing heart as you realise that the rain has now stopped running over you. You look up to see Starscream towering over your shaking form.

You blink at him a little stupidly as you get off the ground and face him properly, missing the distant thud of a heavy object hitting the forest floor.

“Starscream,” you gasp, as he slowly takes his hand out and picks you up.

“I was wondering where you went.” He speaks as he holds you up to his face to inspect you 

You let out a grunt of discomfort as his digits hold you across your burns, and you push his talons slightly to give you space. He acquiesces. 

“What happened? You’re hurt.” He says, gently touching the crown of your head with a talon. He’s gentle, but the pain is searing as he brushes his digit through damp hair, making you hiss in pain, and sees the bullet lodged in your calf.

“I hit my head on the roller door trying to get out of the hangar,” you say, and gasp suddenly as you feel Starscream yank out the tiny bullet from your calf. The sharp stabbing pain has turned into a dull throb.

  
“It doesn’t feel like you’ve broken anything. We will inspect your injuries when we return to the Harbinger. I am... glad you returned safely.”

“Thanks Starscream,” you reply, too aware of how your face burned at his confirmation that he was happy you came back in one piece.

So uh wh-where did you go?! Why were you out of the cave?” You ask, your breath unsteady, having nothing to do with the midnight run through the forest.

“I was aware from the frequencies around the area that MECH were converging on my location… I was just about to go look for you.” He replies, looking in much better condition than before, and moves away from the cave.

“How are we going to get back?” You ask, raising your voice over the cacophony of rain off of Starscream as you try to cover yourself with his claws, placing the now saturated computer under yourself. It’s been a long night running in the rain, and you are well and truly soaked to the bone. The warmth that Starscream is providing with his chassis and protection of the rain is showing you how much warmth you’ve lost during the course of the day as you shiver hopelessly against him, and the realisation that you’re in the clutches of safety lets an overwhelming wave of exhaustion hit you.

“Freeze!” 

Oh god _ , what now. _

Starscream slows himself to a stop.

He is a behemoth, so you can see the strength it takes for him to halt himself, and he turns around with you close to his chest. Peeking from his enclosed talons, you can just see floodlights falling on him as the sharp light blinds you.

“Ah…  _ MECH _ . It seems that we haven’t seen each other-”

“Drop the Lieutenant safely. You’re surrounded,” comes the sturdy shout of the mercenary, and Starscream, without hesitation slowly lowers you to the ground.

You fall on unsteady legs, standing up close to his pede, looking at him frantically as you clutch the computer. It’s not that you didn’t trust Starscream, but the contents of today’s discussion with Veronica stir uneasily within you.

What was he planning?

It’s only now that you can see the mercenaries have fanned out, about six of them trying to circle Starscream as you look up at him in total shock and horror.

“I’m so sorry, I should have asked what you wanted me to do. Besides,” he continues, letting go of the damage of his chassis and letting his two servos flop limply, “I need both servos to do this.” 

In a split second, before you have time to process a thought properly, before you’re wondering what exactly Starscream is up to, two identical missiles fire from Starscream’s arms and into the congregation of soldiers below.

You shield your eyes from the close-quarters explosions as Starscream scoops you up and transforms, shooting off into the sky and through clouds away from the ghastly screams of the soldiers.

You’re stock-still in the seat, a cold wind blasting in through the cracks in the glass, making goosebumps rise on your skin. You’re submerged in the icy cold cabin, and you try not to hyperventilate, not sure if it’s the barely breathable oxygen making you shake, or the fact that Starscream just butchered half a dozen mercenaries in cold blood.

You sit in the half illuminated cockpit as the cold wind bursts across your skin, and you try to come to terms with what the hell just happened. Starscream flies a kilometre before he transforms again and lands with a thud in a wide expanse of wilderness, holding you in his grasp

“(Y/n)...? You are hyperventilating again, are you cold? You can sit in my sub-space to avoid hypothermia once we get closer to the Harbinger-”

“Starscream… you…” 

Starscream looks around almost impatiently and waits for your response before he regards your conflicted expression. You know that stopping MECH might have resulted in casualties, but these people were just following orders.

Yet… right now, it was survival. You knew that losses and hard decisions were to be made, and you weren’t even the one to carry out the attack. Starscream acted on the base instinct to survive. You feel the intense gaze of Starscream as you look into his face and continue.

“You can place me in your subspace, it’ll be easier so you don’t have to carry me the entire time.” Your voice chokes up at the end, but your steely gaze either fools Starscream to making you think that you’re fine, or your countenance is accepted for the time being.

He transforms, a whirlwind of cold biting air and a grating cacophony, before the two of you make it to the Harbinger.

***

Time seems to pass somewhat.

You keep passing out in the cockpit, dimly aware of Starscream pausing every so often to rest momentarily.

Time flows, but you don’t know how much goes by.

The clouds part, the moon shines at one point and begins to set. 

You dream of being stuck on a boat, rolling from side to side with water sloshing on board as the boat cuts through giant waves that are bigger than you. They’re unrelenting, an assault on all your senses as the untamed beast throws you around like the little ragdoll you are.

A bottomless ocean, a den of lions, you’re at the whim and mercy of something so much stronger than you.

You slowly wake as your body rolls and slides from one side of the tiny compartment to the other, the knock on your head is starting to painfully throb. The computer smacks you square in the face, and you grab onto it.

The air is suffocating when you realise that there’s no proper air circulation in here, and you let out a soft groan as you try to sit up, only to be thrown to the side.

“Starscream! Get some air in here!” You demand, weakly banging onto the interior of his subspace as you close your eyes in the pitch darkness and try to imagine him walking. But the regular sashaying is replaced by the fact that you know he’s limping heavily. 

There’s no noise or response, but a sudden feeling of weightlessness with your knees jelly-like, the feeling of you falling. The whole world shakes and crashes around you. Your head is knocked around and you don’t know if you black out for hours or if you close your eyes for only a moment.

“Starscream?” You ask throat sore and raspy as consciousness suddenly greets you. After a long moment, you feel everything shift around you as the subspace opens and you’re greeted with chilly early morning air that invigorates you as you breathe deeply.

You carefully jump out as you look around your surroundings. Familiar mesas dot the horizon as you realise that you’re only a few yards away from the Harbinger. You slip to the side as you reach Starscream, gently pressing your hand on his face, and he shudders his optics open momentarily at you, before closing them.

The Autobots and Decepticons could have been waging war right on top of him, and he would have barely given a flying fuck to move from his spot in the dirt.

Your head is throbbing, but you know you’ve got work to do.

You run to the mouth of the Harbinger, and the awning to the hideaway opens as soon as you step towards it. The mouth spirals open as you rush inside to get the movable trolley, after depositing the computer, and press the controls as it rolls down the ramp, making the journey to Starscream and parking it beside him.

“Starscream, you’re almost there, just roll over to your right.”   
  


You spend several minutes trying to convince a barely lucid Starscream to roll on his side, as you maneuver the trolley to return to the Harbinger. You raise the moveable platform so Starscream’s legs and arms don't scrape against the ground, and move him into the Harbinger and parallel to his berth. You jump on and start pushing him over, and rolls to his side. Satisfied that he won't roll over, you make your way to the bench far across the room, and then start to prepare a Cybertronian analgesic, and Energon to a drip.

You deposit the medicine as a small bubble, the size of a dinner plate, from a drip that combines all the liquids together, held together with a special flexiglass case. The bubble fits neatly in the middle of a metal wheel as tall as you, ready to attach itself to Cybertronian alloy and administer the medicine through the wheel.

.    
You remember Starscream showing you what a painkiller chip looked like, a fragment that was taken orally like paracetamol. The heavier stuff, you figured, would have to be taken through the Cybertronian’s Energon stream.

You prepare another bubble of the medication, and a general booster to eradicate any infection that he may have picked up from his open wounds.

You’re amazed how the metal is able to attach itself to a Cybertronian and initiate a transfer of fluids and medicine. You attach the drip to a metal stand, and jump down as you push and drag it to the side of the berth. You then jump onto the table, and link it to Starscream’s protoform. 

You bring the trolley over and then with all your strength, wheel one of the medicine dispensers until it detects Starscream, and attaches itself with a deafening metal clang like a magnet. You do that for the two wheels of the heavy painkiller, and then log his vitals into the system which only takes a few moments.

You close your eyes after you realise that he’s been running on 21% efficiency, and your brain lamely comments that at least he got back to a recharging station before he died. You look over at the crumpled up body of Starscream on the table as you bite your lip. 

Your heart pounds painfully in your chest, and know that it's best not to dwell on the situation when Starscream isn’t completely out of the woods yet. Miracuously, he seems to be stable, and you monitor his situation for a few minutes, watching his energon ratio inch up slowly for a few minutes, before the cold in the room finally gets to you, and you go to wash up in your room.

You are  _ exhausted. _

You strip, throw epsom salts into the hazy water as you jump in and let yourself melt into the bath of the sink. The warm water envelops you almost painfully as it heats you up to the bone, making you sigh in relief. In the safety of your bath, a few bitter tears slip at the carnage earlier today as you clean off the dried up crusted Energon from your wounds and ears, tinging the water a slight blue.

You want to lie in it for longer, but you know that monitoring Starscream’s health is a priority, and you don’t particularly want to be alone with your thoughts.

Thoughts about how Starscream cut corners and eviscerated humans to get you and himself to safety. The fact that he could be using you for some greater scheme, that he needs you happy and alive to make sure that whatever it is he wants is accomplished.

That maybe you really are in more danger than you know.

You take care to wash yourself, wincing when you lather yourself up over your skin where fresh burns are. You finally have a chance to inspect warped metal where Starscream yanked the bullet out of your calf. You feel the sharp edges of the bent metal, and you know that it will have to be hammered back into a proper place. 

You dry yourself after you finish soaking in the bath, and treat your wounds by bandaging them with the small first aid kit that you have with you. You dress, dry your hair, and then roll up your pants leg and wrap a bandage over your bullet wound to remind you to get Starscream to check on it when he’s lucid again.

You make your way over to the other room, and see that Starscream has now rolled onto his back, his arm over his face to block out the glaring overhanging light.

Oops.

You run to the console and turn it off, giving Starscream some reprieve as you start to clean away the benchtops and prepare a second drip. He seems to have absorbed a lot of the Energon in the past forty minutes, so you fill the Energon calculated to the rest of his vitals.

It’s another 20 minutes before you change the drip again and jump onto the workbench to have a look at Starscream. He looks pretty rough for wear, his exventing is stable, he doesn't look like he’s caught an infection because of your earlier booster, but it would do well to make sure that you can monitor his condition further.

You inspect his scratched paint job, deep grooves in his frame, the ugly welding job you gave him. 

Starscream lets out a small, pitiful groan as he turns to the side, and your readings show you that he’s in light recharge, but the Energon has slowly replaced the painkillers in his system, and he’s starting to feel the bite of his wounds.

You return to the benchtop and concoct another wheel of painkillers, roll it over to him and pull off the other three wheels with ease, placing them on the trolley.

Immediate relief - Starscream lets out an exvent of comfort as you take a moment to inspect his wounds. The messy wielding will probably earn an earful from him, but at this point you’re happy to hear his whining just to know he’s okay. You can always go over with an industrial sander and then a buffer to even out the scars. 

You stand there silently, looking at the speckles of colour of his original grey and purple paint starting to bleed through the metal patches. Remarkable, you think, observing how the metal patches were starting to become absorbed and merged into Cybertronian metal, you turn to look at the wheel still attached to Starscream’s leg.

“(Y/N)...” Comes a raspy voice that startles you from your reverie. You turn to look at Starscream.

“Oh, you’re awake.” You walk closer to his face as Starscream moves his helm to see you.

“How are you feeling?” You ask him, and Starscream struggles to keep his optics online.

“Full… I have so much energon in me,” he replies, slurred and slightly giddy, and you try to hide your smile at his speech as you walk around him.

“That’s good, seems like you were running on empty,” you reply, and watch as his servo wobbles unsteadily as it looms towards you. You stand still as the servo gently clutches around you, holds onto you steady.

  
“Easy,” you speak. As he holds you a little loose, he begins to lift you up and places you 

square on his chassis. The action reminds you of a UFO catcher claiming a prize in its loose grip.

“I need you to stay here,” he speaks, cupping his servo over your body as you lie on your stomach and stare at Starscream. His voice mixed with EM field vibrates through you, and you can sense a fear of abandonment.

“It’s okay, Starscream, I won’t leave you, I’ll just be over-”

  
“That is an order.” He speaks, terse in his command pronouncing his slurred speech, the panic spiking his servo cupping down a bit more forcefully on your back.

“Very well.” You acquiesce, the panic melting away like snow on a winter morning as the weight of his servo relaxes on you. You bite your lip, not knowing how to feel about his reaction.

There's a lull in the conversation as you close your eyes, running a finger on his chassis, and you feel something reach over and pat your head, playing with your hair as the throbbing on your head is getting worse as you wince slightly.

“Are you still hurt?” 

“Yeah, I uh, didn’t really get a chance to treat my head. The metal on my leg is warped though.” You reply while you keep drawing random circles and symbols on his chest. You feel his arm twitch, like he can't decide if he wants to keep holding you or play with your hair, and lifts the hand that was playing with your hair as he reaches behind him. 

“We will have to hammer the metal back into place so your protoform is kept safe. We will look for a smaller hammer,” he slurs.

There’s a squelching noise and a rough movement as he sharply tugs against something, before he places a wet, jelly-like substance on the crown of your head.

“What… what is that,” you ask, shivering at the initial feeling but then relaxing at the pain leaving you, liquid oozing into your hair.

  
“Gel beds have internal healing properties for Cybertronians.” He states dumbly and you let out a hum as a passable response, feeling him stroke your head.

“Starscream… about the mercenaries… earlier today.” You ask belatedly, realising that you shouldn’t take advantage of him when he’s high as a kite.

“Yes..?” He asks. You bite your lip, letting your impulse drive the conversation.

“Did…. Do you feel bad for doing that? Firing off rockets at the mercenaries to get away?”

Starscream doesn’t say anything for a long time, and you close your eyes as his gentle ministrations. You ascertain that he’s not mad, because he would have stopped completely if he was, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t answer you

.

“Because we’re in a war between humans who want you… and us. If I hadn’t done so, we would have been either gravely injured, or dead, and I can assure you,” he continues, his voice letting up on the slur, “that I have had copious experience with loss over hesitation. Inaction can reap devastating consequences in circumstances such as ours.”

  
Us. 

_ Ours. _

The words shouldn’t make your heart do a backflip and make you desperately yearn for something more, but they do.

You’re irrevocably enamoured with him and if you were back at the hangar you might have just let the roller shutter door finish the job with how much you can’t deal with it.

“Was that a bad thing to do?” He draws you from your thoughts.

“I… don’t know. Our circumstances are difficult. You can argue that it’s wrong to kill from a moral perspective, back at the forest…but if we did that, it’s a possibility we wouldn’t be here right now.” There’s more silence as Starscream continues to play with your wet locks.

“Would you do the same for me?”

You almost choke, and your heart bangs against your rib cage wildly, making your head ring and throb painfully. Wild thoughts of suicidal lovers jumping off cliffs and taking poison filter through your brain. That is not what it is, you try to remind yourself with a bitter edge.

“You mean, against Megatron? Silas?” You ask. Taking life, human or any other sort of alien life, is a heavy price to pay, and you don’t know if you could execute that wish even to save Starscream. 

“Yes, I’d protect you,” you reply simply, pretending that there was no internal conflict at his question.

Starscream’s facial plate stretches out in a smile.

  
“Nobody has said that to me before.” Nobody goes around asking if you’d kill for them so candidly, your brain retorts, but his response evokes a deep sense of sadness from you.

What a lonely, pitiful existence Starscream must lead to have nobody care about him. 

“I won’t leave you,” you say simply, and he hums in response.

“Neither will I… you are more valuable than you know,’ he murmurs in the darkness.

You stare at him a little longer, feeling his EM field’s giddy drunk happiness wash over yours. It washes over your anxiety, and worries like water on a sand castle as you close your eyes. His EM field extends, touching, mingling, immersing and blending with yours until you don’t know where your EM field ends and his begins. You can’t do anything about it, you can’t withdraw it, you’re in too deep and you’re already head over heels into something forbidden and unspoken.

Was it inevitable you were to feel like this about him?

You feel the mixture of your EM fields extend and fill your insides with the most peculiar sensation. You black out on top of Starscream, as exhaustion finally takes its toll on your tired body.

Maybe it won't be so bad if you accept your feelings for him.

And yet…

There’s a voice in the depths of your subconsciousness that calls for your attention, but disappears in the crest and waves of thoughts.

_ Do not be so fooled. _

_ There’s a reason for his loneliness _ .

  
  
  
  
  


***

Water splashes down on Veronica’s face, her clothes are saturated as she hyperventilates. The smell of charred bodies fill the air, fire smouldering in the wet undergrowth trying and failing to ignite properly, the only left over fire is struggling to stay lit.

The craters that Starscream left have the remains of one person who was so scattered that she couldn’t find his limbs within a 6 foot radius, some are charred bodies, and others are unconscious.

“I  _ told  _ them to dismantle their comm links so that they wouldn’t be detected,” she mutters, her voice wobbling as tears run down her face.

“V….Veronica…” Comes a broken gasp as she notices one of the mercs struggling to crawl away from the wreckage. He looks whole, and she runs up to check his vitals.

  
“What happened!” She asks, short of breath as his breathing comes in ragged gasps.

“Starscream annihilated our entire team. We were looking for the Lieutenant…. He fires off two missiles that blow half of us to hell and back,” he replies slightly muffled through his mask. She takes his hand and holds it in a vice grip as she grabs the comms device off of his belt without asking.

It rings once, twice, before the other end picks up.

“Status report,” he speaks.

“Silas, It’s me, Veronica. I’m using one of the merc’s comms. I… did as you were told. The extraction team to pick up Starscream has been..decimated. There’s a body count. You need to send through an extraction team and medics to pick up the remains and help the others… otherwise we’ll attract unwanted attention.”

  
“And (Y/N?)”

“She… I met her in your office looking for equipment. I answered all of her questions since my cover is now blown to her, and told her as you told me. She seemed conflicted, but still chose to escape to Starscream who I believe was hiding nearby, though she did not fire upon me or anyone else. She also fried my comms device. I do not know how she did it, but she seems to have developed a way to do so.”

  
There’s silence on the other end.

“Other mercs also have relayed that she seems to possess incredible strength in her legs. I do not know how she obtained them, but they look to be mechanical, so I can only assume they are Starscream’s doing.”

“That… is interesting. I believe that Starscream is cultivating his own experiments on her while she’s completely complacent.”

  
Veronica’s brow furrows at Silas’ words, still holding the man’s hand in her grip.

  
“It appears that she does not want to hurt you, so she hasn’t been completely tied over by Starscream, no matter his alien charm. She still has a want and a reason to speak to you. I believe that you have been the only human contact that she has encountered since her kidnap by Starscream.”

There’s a pause from Veronica. She tries to keep her voice from trembling as she continues.

“I see, sir. I should also report she stole the computer from your office.” 

Silas gives a thoughtful hum.

“In that case, we should be seeing her soon enough. I will brief you when you return so that we may exact our retribution on our Cybertronian friend. Silas, out.”

  
Veronica hangs up the phone and clenches it while she closes her eyes momentarily, before opening them again and helping the man at her feet.

_ I’ll save you, even if you don’t want me to (y/n). _

_ For your sake. _


End file.
